(£0mm0r»w?altl    nf 


DEPARTMENT    Or    AGRICULTURE 

Dr.  ARTHUR  W.  GILBERT,  Commissioner 
136  STATE  HOUSE.  BOSTON 


THE  UT  .H'Y  OF  BIRDS! 


SECOND  EDITION,  REVISED 


DIVISION  OF  ORNITHOL    CY. 

F.DWARD   HOWL  FORBU5H,  Dir 


BOSTON 

HT  6-   i^OTTER  PRINTING  CO.,  STATE  PRINTERS 
32  D^RNE  STREET 
1922 


EXCHANGE 


A  MONUMENT  TO  SEA  GULLS. 

Western  gulls  saved  from  death  by  starvation  the  first  Mormon  settlers  in  Utah.  This  monument 
was  erected  in  Salt  Lake  City  by  the  grateful  people,  at  an  expense  of  $40,000,  to  commemorate 
the  event.  (From  Bird-Lore.  See  page  21.) 


Department  Bulletin  No.  9 


QJommflttuiealilj  of 


DEPARTMENT    OF    AGRICULTURE 

Dr.  ARTHUR  W.  GILBERT,  Commissioner 
136  STATE  HOUSE,  BOSTON 


THE  UTILITY  OF  BIRDS 


SECOND  EDITION,  REVISED 


DIVISION  OF  ORNITHOLOGY 

EDWARD  HOWE  FORBU5H,  Director 

\ 


BOSTON 

WRIGHT  &  POTTER  PRINTING  CO..  STATE  PRINTERS 

32  DERNE  STREET 

1922 


PUBLICATION  OF  THIS  DOCUMENT 

APPROVED    BY    THE 

SUPERVISOR  OF  ADMINISTRATION. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introduction,            ...........  5 

The  Function  of  Birds  in  Nature,        . 7 

Utility  of  Insect-eating  Birds,   .          .          .                             .          .  14 

Quantity  of  Insects  eaten  by  Young  Birds,  .          .          ....          .          .  18 

Quantity  of  Insect  Food  required  by  Adult  Birds,          ....  19 

Crops  and  Trees  saved  from  Destruction  by  Birds,         ....  20 

Decrease  of  Birds  followed  by  Increase  of  Destructive  Insects,        .          .  37 

Increase  of  Birds  followed  by  Decrease  of  Destructive  Insects,        .          .  42 

Birds  as  Weed  Destroyers,         .........  45 

Birds  as  Distributors  and  Planters  of  Seeds,        .          .          .     *    .          .          .46 
Birds  as  Scavengers,          .         .          .          .  .          .          .          .          .47 

Utility  of  Birds  of  Prey, 47 

Services  rendered  by  Shore  Birds,  Marsh  Birds,  Waterfowl  and  Sea  Birds,       .  53 

Cash  Value  of  Birds'  Services 60 

Utility  of  Birds  in  War 63 

Commercial  Value  of  Birds,       .........  64 

Early  Abundance  of  Game  Birds,         .         .          .          .          .          .          .65 

Game  Birds  as  Food,          .........  65 

Eggs  of  Sea  Birds  as  Food 69 

Feathers  of  Sea  Birds  and  Wild-fowl  for  Bedding 70 

Feathers  for  Ornament 72 

Shooting  Birds  for  Sport,    .........  75 

Value  of  Birds  in  Domestication, 76 

Fertility  from  the  Sea  —  Immense  Value  of  Guano  Deposits,           .          .  77 

Esthetic,  Sentimental  and  Educational  Value  of  Birds,  80 


484681 


THE  UTILITY  OF  BIEDS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

There  is  a  continual  demand  for  literature  setting  forth  the 
usefulness  of  our  native  birds.  In  the  introductory  chapter  to 
my  "Useful  Birds  and  their  Protection"  the  subject  of  the 
utility  of  birds  in  nature  was  treated  at  some  length,  but  as 
that  work,  having  passed  through  several  editions,  is  now  out 
of  print,  it  seems  necessary  to  treat  the  subject  briefly  as  an 
introduction  to  this  bulletin,  so  that  the  reader,  as  a  necessary 
preliminary  before  examining  the  evidence  regarding  the  value 
of  birds  to  man,  may  realize  something  of  their  function  in  nature. 

Our  globe  teems  with  life.  Uncounted  myriads  of  plants  and 
animals  encompass  the  earth,  dwell  in  the  sea,  or  float  upon  the 
invisible  waves  of  the  atmosphere.  Earth's  animals  and  plants 
vary  in  size  from  that  of  the  infinitesimal  atom,  too  small  for 
the  human  eye  to  discern  through  the  most  powerful  micro- 
scope, up  to  that  of  the  mighty  whale,  90  feet  in  length,  and 
the  great  sequoia  of  California,  325  feet  high,  or  the  giant 
eucalyptus  of  Australia,  reaching  a  height  of  470  feet. 

Let  one  examine  carefully  a  few  square  yards  of  grassland  in 
summer  and  see  how  many  individuals  of  plant  and  animal  life 
he  will  find.1  Let  him  look  thoroughly  over  the  bark  of  a  single 
tree  and  note  how  many  insect  species  are  living  on  or  under  it. 
During  a  few  hours  of  one  July  night  off  the  Maine  coast  we 
saw  in  the  dark,  flashing  waters  myriads  of  fish  limned  in 
phosphorescent  light  darting  away  from  the  prow  of  our  vessel. 
For  10  miles  we  plowed  through  their  countless,  never-ending 
hordes,  apparently  all  of  one  size  and  one  species,  and  no  one 
knows  how  much  farther  their  hosts  extended.  Yet  we  could 
not  have  seen  them  at  all  but  for  the  light  produced  by  the 
countless  millions  of  Noctilucse  which  illumined  every  moving 
thing  in  those  waters.  The  numbers  of  these  tiny  animals  have 
been  estimated  at  30,000  to  each  cubic  inch.  How  many  of 
these  atomies,  representing  only  one  form  of  life,  existed  in  that 
sea  through  which  those  millions  of  fish  were  swimming? 

1  Mr.  W.  L.  McAtee  found  1,254  individual  forms  of  insects  and  other  small  animal  life,  and 
3,113  seeds  on  4  square  feet  of  meadow  land  (Science,  New  Series,  Vol.  XXVI,  No.  666,  Oct.  4, 
1907,  p.  447). 


6 

The  number  of  species  of  living  animals  and  plants  on  the 
earth  is  vast,  and  the  number  of  individuals  entirely  beyond 
human  comprehension.  The  chief  efforts  of  every  individual 
of  each  species  go  to  preserve  its  life  and  to  produce  seed  or 
offspring  and  so  multiply  its  kind,  but  always  and  everywhere 
similar  efforts  of  the  many  other  organisms  by  which  each 
species  is  surrounded  tend  to  hold  its  multiplication  in  check. 
Huxley  says  that  if  there  were  but  a  single  plant  in  the  world, 
and  that  plant  should  produce  but  fifty  seeds  each  year  and 
multiply  unchecked,  its  progeny  would  cover  the  globe  in  nine 
years.  The  oak  produces  quantities  of  acorns.  Were  each  seed 
to  develop  into  a  tree  the  earth  in  time  would  be  covered  with 
oaks,  and  all  other  trees  would  be  crowded  out.  But  many 
mammals,  birds  and  insects  feed  on  acorns  and  so  prevent  their 
germination;  others  feed  on  the  seedling  trees  and  destroy 
bark,  leaf  and  wood,  so  that  on  the  average  each  mature  oak 
during  all  the  years  of  its  long  life  succeeds  in  producing  but  one 
other  to  live  and  take  its  place.  The  fulmar  petrel,  so  says 
Darwin,  lays  but  one  egg,  yet  it  is  believed  to  be  the  most 
numerous  species  of  bird  in  the  world.  Wallace  estimates  that 
the  unchecked  increase  of  any  pair  of  birds  having  four  young 
each  year  would  amount  to  2,000,000,000  birds  in  fifteen  years. 
However,  such  an  enormous  multiplication  never  happens  be- 
cause snakes,  turtles,  crows,  hawks,  jays,  squirrels,  raccoons, 
cats,  foxes  and  many  other  creatures  eat  birds  or  their  eggs  or 
young.  Many  birds  are  destroyed  by  the  elements;  they  are 
starved,  frozen  and  drowned,  and  their  increase  is  checked  so 
that  commonly  in  nature  but  one  pair  of  birds  succeeds  another. 

In  the  insect  world  the  possibilities  of  unchecked  increase  are 
still  more  formidable  than  among  mammals  or  birds.  Huxley 
reckons  that  the  young  of  a  certain  plant  louse,  increasing  un- 
checked, in  one  year  would  equal  in  bulk  the  entire  human 
population  of  the  Chinese  Empire.  Such  increases  in  number, 
however,  are  impossible  because  of  the  many  forces  always 
working  to  check  them.  Insects  in  all  their  forms  are  killed 
and  eaten  continually  by  a  host  of  other  creatures. 

Each  animal  species  while  striving  mightily  to  increase  its 
numbers  also  works  to  hold  others  in  check.  Forbes  likens  the 
whole  system  of  life  with  all  its  interrelations  to  a  series  of  ex- 


panding  and  contracting  springs,  each  of  which  in  expanding  is 
checked,  pushed  back  or  compressed  by  others.  The  moment 
one  weakens  and  becomes  slightly  contracted  others  expand  to 
fill  the  vacancy.  When  one  expands  unduly,  others  exert  in- 
creased force  to  contract  it  again;  for  example,  when  locusts 
become  unduly  numerous  and  devastate  the  land,  practically  all 
wild  beasts  and  birds  neglect  other  foods  and  consume  locusts 
until  the  latter  again  become  reduced  in  numbers.  All  the 
forces  of  Nature  are  thus  balanced  one  against  another.  Plants 
and  trees  produce  foliage  and  seed  enough  to  feed  all  living 
animals,  some  of  which  take  their  food  direct  from  plant  life, 
while  others  get  it  wholly  or  in  part  at  secondhand  by  devour- 
ing insects  or  other  animals  which  feed  on  plants. 

We  may  say,  then,  that  in  the  economy  of  Nature  all  species 
are  useful,  since  all  have  their  part  in  preserving  that  general 
balance  and  stability  which  works  for  the  good  of  all  life. 

The  Function  of  Birds  in  Nature. 

The  chief  value  of  birds  in  the  general  plan  lies  in  the  great 
part  that  they  have  in  maintaining  this  biologic  balance,  —  a 
part  that  cannot  be  filled  by  other  creatures.  Like  many  other 
organisms  they  are  ordinarily  rather  impartial  of  choice  regard- 
ing food,  and  they  forage  wherever  and  on  whatever  is  best  for 
the  common  welfare.  Nevertheless,  birds  exercise  some  choice 
and  fill  a  special  place.  Their  position  in  one  respect  is  unique. 
Their  structure  fits  them  to  perform  a  certain  function,  —  that 
of  a  swiftly  moving  body  of  police,  adapted  to  sweep  rapidly 
over  the  surface  of  the  earth  and  assemble  quickly  in  hosts 
wherever  most  needed  to  combat  abnormal  outbreaks  or  ir- 
ruptions of  animal  life. 

A  swarm  of  grasshoppers  appears,  and  birds  from  far  and 
near  concentrate  upon  them.  A  plague  of  field  mice  occurs, 
and  birds  descend  upon  them  from  the  four  quarters  of  the 
land.  This  facility  of  movement  renders  birds  serviceable,  also, 
in  clearing  the  earth  of  offensive  decaying  animal  matter,  for 
many  are  scavengers.  Quantities  of  fish  are  cast  upon  the  shore, 
and  thousands  of  sea  birds  come  sweeping  in  from  wide  waters 
and  far  shores  to  devour  them.  Vultures  gather  from  afar  to 


8 

destroy  the  decomposing  carcasses  of  the  animals  slain  by  some 
pestilence.  Birds  are  particularly  fitted  to  perform  such  services 
in  Nature  (1)  by  their  wonderful  power  of  flight,  (2)  by  their 
remarkable  vision,  (3)  by  their  great  capacity  for  consuming  and 
assimilating  food,  and  (4)  by  their  propensity  to  wander. 

Birds  excel  all  other  creatures  in  powers  of  flight.  The  arctic 
tern  migrates  annually  from  the  arctic  regions  to  the  Antarctic 
Ocean.  The  tiny  ruby-throated  hummingbird  flies  from  Hudson 
Bay  to  Panama.  The  semi-annual  migrations  of  birds  over  the 
northern  hemisphere  enable  them  to  explore  every  part  of  each 
continent  over  which  they  pass,  and  to  exert  a  periodic  re- 
pressive influence  upon  all  living  creatures  on  which  they  feed, 
-first  in  their  northern  homes,  next  in  migration  over  the 
temperate  zone,  and  last  in  the  southern  lands,  where  they 
winter  and  where  they  reenforce  the  numbers  of  resident  birds, 
most  of  which  migrate  little  if  at  all.  The  highly  developed 
flight-powers  of  birds  enable  them  to  overtake  and  destroy 
both  winged  and  wingless  creatures  amid  the  foliage  of  plants, 
on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  in  the  air,  and  even  in  and  under 
the  water  into  which  many  birds  can  readily  dive  and  in  which 
many  can  both  swim  and  fly.  Birds,  like  insects,  can  quickly 
reach  from  the  air  all  external  parts  of  plants,  and  they  are 
especially  formed  and  adapted  for  the  pursuit  of  insects. 

Birds  find  distant  food  mainly  by  their  almost  telescopic 
sight.  Thus  warblers  high  in  air  discern  others  far  below  en- 
gaged in  the  act  of  feeding,  and  seeing  this  they  drop  from  the 
sky  and  join  the  busy  throng.  Thus,  too,  the  vulture,  floating 
-aloft  on  level  pinions,  discovers  food  in  the  valley  below,  and 
circling  downward  is  seen  by  others  in  the  distant  skies;  as 
they  turn  to  follow  him  they  also  are  observed  by  others  still, 
and  so  the  tidings  spread  until  at  last  a  great  assemblage  of 
these  feathered  scavengers  concentrates  at  the  fatal  spot. 

The  muscular  power  exhibited  by  birds,  their  high  tempera- 
ture, the  extremely  rapid  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  their 
remarkable  activity  compel  them  to  eat  a  tremendous  amount 
of  food  to  repair  the  constant  waste  of  their  tissues.  The 
enormous  capacity  of  birds  for  assimilating  food  can  be  appre- 
ciated by  those  only  who  have  studied  the  subject.  When  food 
is  plentiful  birds  gorge  themselves.  So  rapid  is  the  digestion  of 


9 

the  smaller  insectivorous  birds  that  they  are  able  daily  to  con- 
sume and  assimilate  quantities  of  insect  food  enormously  be- 
yond their  apparent  capacity. 

When  one  begins  to  study  the  food  of  birds  he  finds  that  ex- 
ceedingly complex  food  relations  exist  between  the  bird  and 
the  animals  and  plants  on  which  it  feeds.  The  food  preferences 
of  a  bird  may  produce  complicated,  far-reaching  and  unexpected 
results.  It  is  not  often  possible  for  the  investigator  who  studies 
a  bird's  food  to  measure  fully  the  effect  of  its  feeding  habits. 
In  ordinary  circumstances  a  tent  caterpillar  and  a  climbing  cut- 
worm both  would  be  considered  destructive,  as  both  are  known 
to  consume  the  foliage  of  trees,  but  when  we  find  the  climbing 
cutworm  destroying  the  living  pupae  of  the  tent  caterpillar 
moth,  it  seems  questionable  at  first  sight  whether  the  bird  that 
eats  both  is  rendering  any  valuable  service  in  nature.  Likewise, 
when  we  find  birds  feeding  on  tiny  parasitic  insects  which  kill 
injurious  insects  by  living  and  feeding  within  their  bodies,  or 
when  we  see  birds  destroying  the  larger  predaceous  insects 
which  kill  and  eat  so-called  injurious  insects,  we  are  inclined  to 
wonder  whether  birds  when  engaged  in  destroying  such  bene- 
ficial creatures  are  not  themselves  injurious. 

Let  us  examine  the  effect  of  this  practice  among  birds.  First, 
it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  chief  function  of  birds  is  to 
perform  their  part  in  holding  in  check  the  whole  great  body  of 
insect  life,  and  to  help  in  preventing  its  undue  increase.  There- 
fore, since  birds  are  helping  to  hold  in  check  all  insect  life,  their 
reduction  of  what  we  call  beneficial  insects  is  a  negligible  harm, 
if  they  are  at  the  same  time  reducing  in  greater  measure  the 
numbers  of  the  far  more  numerous  injurious  insects.  Man's 
own  measures  to  control  pests  (as  by  spraying)  destroy  many 
useful  parasitic  and  predaceous  insects;  but  spraying  is  not 
thereby  condemned.  Under  normal  conditions  birds  and  other 
predatory  enemies  of  insects  are  of  chief  importance.  Parasitic 
insects,  though  often  performing  remarkably  efficient  service, 
are  ordinarily  of  secondary  value  for  the  following  reason: 
birds  and  other  predatory  enemies  of  insects  destroy  their 
prey  at  once,  while  most  parasites  allow  the  insect  pests  to 
continue  injurious  activity  until  the  latter  have  nearly  or 
fully  passed  their  feeding  period.  The  parasite,  therefore,  in 


10 

case  of  an  irruption  of  an  insect  pest  does  not  usually  destroy 
the  pest  until  the  injury  has  been  done;  it  only  prevents 
another  generation.  Birds  and  other  predatory  enemies,  on  the 
other  hand,  kill  the  pest  at  once,  and  so  prevent  both  imme- 
diate and  later  injury. 

Professor  F.  E.  L.  Beal,  who  probably  examined  the  contents 
of  more  birds'  stomachs  than  any  other  scientist  of  his  time, 
says,  "That  birds  are  an  efficient  check  upon  insect  multipli- 
cation seems  impossible  of  denial,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  any- 
where else  in  the  animal  kingdom  any  other  restraining  influence 
so  important  can  be  found."  1 

We  must  understand  that  birds  in  Nature  are  neither  mere 
beneficent  organisms,  working  solely  for  the  good  of  the  human 
race,  nor  injurious  enemies  of  mankind;  but  that  as  a  whole 
they  form  a  regulative  body  doing  their  part  in  keeping  a 
wholesome  balance  amongst  the  forces  of  Nature  for  the  benefit 
of  all.  To  illustrate  in  some  measure  the  food  relations  of  birds 
and  the  manner  in  which  food  preferences  react,  the  following, 
somewhat  revised,  is  taken  in  substance  from  my  "  Useful 
Birds  and  their  Protection:"  — 

Eagles,  large  hawks  and  owls  feed  to  some  extent  on  crows, 
and  probably  the  nocturnal,  tree-climbing,  nest-hunting  raccoon 
also  robs  crows  of  eggs  and  young;  otherwise  they  seem  to 
have  very  few  natural  enemies  to  check  their  increase.  Crows 
feed  on  so  many  different  forms  of  animal  and  vegetable  life 
that  they  are  nearly  always  able  to  find  an  abundance  of 
suitable  food;  therefore  they  are  commonly  and  widely  dis- 
tributed. 

The  general  fitness  of  the  crow  is  admitted  by  all.  Un- 
doubtedly it  has  a  useful  work  to  perform  in  the  world.  But 
a  careful  study  of  its  food  habits  shows  so  many  apparently 
harmful  traits  that  it  may  well  leave  the  investigator  in  some 
doubt  regarding  the  crow's  value  in  the  general  plan.  Crows 
rob  the  nests  of  robins,  eating  very  many  eggs  and  young  birds; 
therefore  they  constitute  a  serious  check  on  the  increase  of 
robins.  Robins  feed  largely  on  common  black  beetles,  called 
ground  beetles  (Carabidae).  As  these  beetles  are  not  quick  to 
fly  by  day  and  may  be  easily  caught,  they  form  a  considerable 

1  Beal,  F.  E.  L.:  The  Relation  between  Birds  and  Insects,  Yearbook,  United  States  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  1908,  p.  344. 


11 


A  ground  beetle 
ordinarily  useful, 
but  injurious  if  in 
excessive  num- 
bers, eaten  by  the 
robin. 


part    of    the    food    of    many    ground-frequenting    birds.      But 

ground  beetles  feed  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  on  other  insects. 

The   question   then  arises,  is  not   the  robin 

doing   harm   by   eating   ground  beetles,   and 

does  it  not  merit  the  destruction  of  its  eggs 

and  young  by  the  crow?     If  the  robin's  habit 

of  eating  these  beetles  is  harmful,  is  not  the 

crow  rendering  a  service  by  destroying  a  bird 

apparently  so  injurious  as  the  robin?    If  there 

were  too  many  robins  might  they  not  eat  too 

many  ground  beetles  and  thus  become  the  in- 
direct cause  of  the  destruction  of  much  vegeta- 
tion by  saving  the  lives  of  the  caterpillars 

and   other   harmful  insects  that   the  ground 

beetles,  had    they    been  spared,  might   have 

destroyed?  1 

Many  ground  beetles  that  are  eaten  by  the  robin  feed  much 

on  vegetable  matter.2    This  makes  these  beetles  doubly  useful 

in  one  respect,  for  they  can  main- 
tain their  numbers  when  insect  food 
is  not  plentiful,  and  so  be  ready  to 
check  any  increase  of  insects  which 
may  occur.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
they  become  too  numerous  they 
may  do  serious  damage  by  destroy- 
ing grass,  grain  or  fruit.  I  have 
witnessed  attacks  made  by  certain 
of  these  beetles  on  grain  and  straw- 
berries, and  were  they  not  held  in 
check  by  birds  they  might  become 
serious  pests.  Their  destruction 
by  robins  and  other  birds  tends 

to  keep  these  beetles  within  those  normal  bounds  where  they 

1  These  questions  can  be  answered  only  by  one  having  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  food  of 
our  ground  beetles,  —  a  knowledge  which  no  living  man  yet  possesses;  but  enough  has  been 
learned  to  throw  some  light  on  their  food  habits.  Insects  that  feed  promiscuously  on  other  insects 
are  regarded  as  beneficial  in  so  far  as  they  take  insect  food,  even  though  they  may  destroy  many 
so-called  useful  insects;  for,  as  the  injurious  insects  far  outnumber  the  useful  species,  any  check 
upon  the  general  increase  of  insect  life  must  result  in  a  balance  of  good. 

1  The  predaceous  beetles  of  one  genus  (Calosoma)  and  those  of  some  closely  allied  genera  are 
exceptions  to  this  rule,  and  are  believed  to  feed  entirely  on  animal  food,  as  their  structureffits 
them  for  that  alone.  They  feed  ravenously  upon  both  beneficial  and  injurious  insects,  and  when 
abnormally  numerous  they  devour  one  another.  These  beetles,  however,  are  eaten  by  crows 
and  probably  not  by  robins. 


Calosoma  scrutator,   useful  ground 
beetle,  eaten  by  crows. 


12 

will  do  the  most  good  and  the  least  harm,  while  the  check 
kept  by  the  crow  on  the  increase  of  the  robin  may  prevent  the 
latter  from  destroying  too  many  ground  beetles.  If  certain  low- 
feeding  caterpillars  should  become  so  numerous  as  to  be  injuri- 
ous, ground  beetles  and  robins  would  feed  largely  on  them.  The 
caterpillars  would  then  largely  take  the  place  of  the  beetles  in 
the  robin's  diet.  The  beetles  therefore  would  increase  in  num- 
bers, and  the  force  of  both  bird  and  beetle  would  be  exerted  to 
reduce  the  caterpillars  to  harmlessness.  This  accomplished,  the 
robins  would  again  attack  the  ground  beetles,  and  thus  tend  to 
reduce  them  to  normal  numbers. 

Let  us  now  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  our  chain  of  de- 
struction. Eagles,  hawks,  owls  and  raccoons  may  indirectly 
swell  the  numbers  of  the  robins  by  limiting  the  increase  of  the 
crow.  But  hawks  and  owls  also  prey  on  the  robin,  and  by 
dividing  their  predatory  activities  between  robin  and  crow  assist 
in  keeping  both  birds  to  their  normal  numbers.  Whenever 
crows  become  rare,  robins  as  a  consequence  would  become  very 
numerous,  were  it  not  that  hawks  also  eat  robins.  (Hawks  and 
owls  also  eat  some  species  of  insects  that  are  eaten  by  both 
robin  and  crow.) 

There  are  compensations  in  the  apparently  detrimental  career 
of  the  crow.  An  omnivorous  bird,  it  takes  any  food  that  is 


Cutworm  moth  and  its  caterpillar,  eaten  by  robins,  crows  and 
other  birds. 

plentiful  and  easily  obtained.  It  is  a  great  feeder  oit  May 
beetles  (miscalled  "June  bugs"),  the  larvae  of  which,  known  as 
white  grubs,  burrow  in  the  ground  and  sometimes  devastate 
grasslands,  and  also  injure  the  roots  of  many  other  plants,  in- 
cluding trees. 

The  crow  is  also  a  destroyer  of  cutworms,  which  are  the 
young  or  larvae  of  noctuid  moths  or  "millers"  such  as  are 
commonly  seen  fluttering  from  the  grass  by  any  one  who  dis- 
turbs them  when  walking  in  the  fields.  Robins  also  feed 


13 

largely  on  cutworms,  as  well  as  on  the  white  grubs  of  the  May 
beetle.  When  these  insects  are  few  in  number,  a  part  of  the 
usual  food  supply  of  both  robin  and  crow  is  cut  off.  This  being 
the  case,  the  hungry  crows  would  be  likely  to  destroy  more 
young  robins  and  other  young  birds  than  usual  in  order  to  make 
up  the  supply  of  animal  food  for  themselves  and  their  ravenous 
nestlings.  This,  again,  would  decrease  perceptibly  the  number 
of  robins  and  other  small  birds,  and  would  be  likely  in  turn  to 
allow  an  increase  of  May  beetles  and  cutworms.  Should  these 
insects  become  more  plentiful,  the  crows  would  naturally  turn 
again  to  them,  neglecting  the  young  of  robins  and  other  birds 
for  a  time,  and  allowing  them  to  increase  once  more,  until  their 
multiplication  put  a  check  on  the  insects,  when  the  crows  would 
of  necessity  again  raid  the  robins. 

The  blue  jay  may  be  taken  as  another  instance  of  this  means 
of  preserving  the  balance  of  Nature.  Hawks  and  owls  kill  blue 
jays,  and  crows  destroy  their  eggs  and  young;  thus  the  blue 
jays  are  kept  in  check.  Jays  are  omnivorous  feeders.  They 
eat  the  eggs  and  young  of  other  birds,  particularly  those  of 
warblers,  sparrows  and  vireos,  —  birds  which  are  active  cater- 
pillar hunters.  But  jays  themselves  are  extremely  efficient 
caterpillar  killers.  They  atone  in  great  measure  for  destroying 
other  caterpillar-eating  birds  when  they  (the  jays)  turn  to 
killing  caterpillars  which  have  increased  in  numbers  in  conse- 
quence of  the  destruction  by  jays  of  eggs  and  young  of  smaller 
birds.  Like  the  crow,  they  virtually  kill  the  nestlings  of  the 
smaller  birds  and  eat  them  that  they  (the  jays)  may  eventually 
have  more  insect  food  for  their  own  young.  When  this  object 
has  been  attained  the  jays  may  perhaps  again  allow  an  increase 
of  the  smaller  birds,  the  survivors  of  which  they  have  indirectly 
furnished  with  more  insect  food,  thus  making  conditions  favor- 
able for  their  increase.  These  oscillations,  or  alternate  expan- 
sions and  contractions,  in  the  numbers  of  birds  or  insects  often 
are  so  slight  as  to  escape  common  observation.  It  is  only  in 
those  cases  where  the  alternations  are  carried  to  extremes  that 
they  result  disastrously.  Under  Nature  the  checks  on  the  in- 
crease of  birds  are  essential,  else  birds  would  multiply  until  their 
food  supply  became  exhausted,  when  they  would  starve,  and 
other  consequences  much  more  complex  and  more  serious  to 
mankind  would  quickly  follow. 


14 

While  the  above  statement  of  the  way  in  which  the  balance 
of  Nature  is  preserved  may  be  regarded  as  somewhat  hypo- 
thetical, probably  it  approximates  what  actually  takes  place, 
although  the  feeding  habits  of  birds  undoubtedly  produce  far 
more  complicated  and  far-reaching  results  than  are  outlined 
here. 

It  is  a  law  of  Nature  that  the  destroyer  is  also  the  preserver. 
Birds  of  prey  benefit  the  species  on  which  they  prey  in  at  least 
two  ways  not  noted  above:  (1)  the  more  powerful  bird  enemies 
of  a  certain  bird  usually  prey  also  upon  some  of  the  weaker 
enemies  of  that  bird;  (2)  these  powerful  birds  also  check  the 
propagation  of  weakness,  disease  or  unfitness  by  killing  off  the 
weaker  or  most  unfit  individuals  among  the  species  on  which 
they  prey,  as  these  are  most  easily  captured. 

We  have  seen  already  that  jays,  which  are  enemies  of  the 
smaller  birds,  are  preyed  upon  by  the  more  powerful  crows, 
hawks  and  owls.  These  latter  also  destroy  skunks,  weasels, 
squirrels,  mice  and  snakes,  all  of  which  are  foes  of  the  smaller 
birds.  No  doubt  these  animals  would  be  much  more  destructive 
to  the  smaller  birds  were  they  without  these  wholesome  feathered 
checks  on  their  increase. 

UTILITY  OF  INSECT-EATING  BIEDS. 

Practically  all  birds  eat  insects,  and  it  is  among  insects  that 
we  find  the  most  destructive  pests  known  to  man.  Most  plant- 
eating  insects  that  live  in  or  about  cultivated  lands  or  forests 
are  potentially  injurious.  Some  when  kept  normally  repressed 
by  their  natural  enemies  may  feed  only  on  noxious  plants  com- 
monly called  "weeds,"  and  so  may  be  harmless  or  even  bene- 
ficial; but  let  the  checks  upon  their  increase  become  lessened 
in  any  way,  so  that  their  natural  food  supply  becomes  insuffi- 
cient for  their  increasing  numbers,  and  they  may  at  once 
menace  growing  crops.  Any  plant-eating  insect  that  increases 
much  beyond  its  normal  numbers  soon  assumes  the  importance 
of  a  pest,  and  all  insects  have  this  tendency  to  multiply. 

Insect  pests  are  particularly  destructive,  not  only  because 
of  their  large  numbers  but  also  because  of  their  great  con- 
sumption of  food.  A  certain  maggot  consumes  in  twenty-four 


15 

hours  two  hundred  times  its  original  weight.1  The  food  taken 
during  fifty-six  days  by  a  caterpillar  of  Telea  polyphemus  equals 
in  weight  eighty-six  thousand  times  the  original  weight  of  the 
caterpillar  when  first  hatched  from  the  egg.  This  enormous 
voracity  accounts  for  the  excessive  destructiveness  of  insects 
when  in  abnormal  numbers.  It  explains  in  part  why  the  yearly 
injury  caused  by  insects  to  agricultural  and  forest  products  in 
the  United  States  exceeds  $1,000,000,000. 

Fortunately  the  appetites  of  birds  closely  match  those  of  in- 
sects. A  single  polyphemus  caterpillar  may  eat  120  oak  leaves 
during  its  lifetime.  But  the  birds  destroy  nearly  all  these  cater- 
pillars and  so  the  species  rarely  becomes  numerous  enough  to 
be  injurious.2  Samuels  says  that  Trouvelot,  to  test  the  effective- 
ness of  birds,  placed  2,000  of  the  polyphemus  caterpillars  on  a 
tree  near  his  door,  and  in  a  few  days  the  birds  had  eaten  them 
all.3 

In  1861  Trouvelot  began  his  attempt  to  produce  silk  from 
American  silkworms.  He  experimented  at  Medford,  Massa- 
chusetts, for  several  years,  and  from  1864  to  1870  he  raised  the 
larvae  of  Telea  polyphemus  in  large  numbers.  It  was  about  1869 
that,  in  the  course  of  his  importations  of  European  insects  for 
experimentation,  he  introduced  and  accidentally  liberated  the 
gypsy  moth  which  has  proven  a  very  destructive  and  expensive 
pest.  For  six  years  or  more  he  reared  polyphemus  caterpillars 
in  astonishing  numbers,  having  over  five  acres  of  shrub  oak  and 
other  bushes  fenced  in  and  covered  with  netting  for  this  pur- 
pose. He  found  birds  by  far  "the  most  formidable  enemies  of 
the  caterpillars,"  and  he  tells  us  that  birds  came  from  far  and 
near  to  destroy  them.  The  smaller  birds  forced  themselves 
through  the  meshes  of  the  net,  and  the  larger  ones  found  holes 
through  which  they  were  able  to  enter,  and  he  was  "  obliged  to 
chase  them  all  the  day  long,  as  when  pursuing  them  on  one  side 
they  would  fly  to  the  other,"  and  feed  until  he  reappeared.4 

Samuels  tells  us  that  Trouvelot  was  obliged  to  shoot  many 
birds,  especially  robins;  that  he  never  found  any  fruit  in  the 

*  Lintner,  J.  A.:  Sixteenth  Annual  Report,  New  Jersey  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1888-89, 
p.  295. 

1  Trouvelot,  Leopold:  The  American  Silk  Worm,  American  Naturalist,  Vol.  1, 1867,  pp.  85, 
89, 145. 

»  Samuels,  E.  A.:  Birds  of  New  England,  1870.  p.  156. 

«  Trouvelot,  Leopold:  American  Naturalist,  Vol.  1,  1867,  pp.  89  and  145. 


16 

stomachs  of  these  birds,  but  only  insects;  and  that  he  con- 
cluded that  if  the  birds  were  killed  off  all  vegetation  would  be 
destroyed  by  insects.1  Here  we  have  the  chief  reason  why  the 
huge  caterpillars  of  polyphemus,  cecropia  and  luna  moths, 
which  are  capable  of  doing  immense  damage,  rarely  become 
numerous  enough  to  be  noticeable.  When  the  settlers  on  our 
great  western  plains  first  began  to  plant  trees  to  provide  wind- 
breaks on  the  prairies  they  introduced  the  eggs  or  cocoons  of 
large  moths  on  the  young  trees.  As  there  were  no  tree  birds 
then  in  the  region,  the  larvse  of  the  larger  moths,  such  as 
polyphemus  and  cecropia,  multiplied  exceedingly,  making  it  al- 
most impossible  to  grow  trees,  but  as  groves  and  orchards 
finally  became  established,  and  arboreal  birds  spread  over  the 
country,  nesting  and  rearing  their  young  in  the  trees,  these 
caterpillars  were  reduced  to  comparatively  harmless  numbers.2 

Dr.  Robert  T.  Morris  of  New  York  City  wrote  me  on  Decem- 
ber 7,  1917:  — 

i 

My  own  special  hobby  is  the  hybridizing  of  nut  trees  upon  my  country 
place  at  Stamford,  Connecticut.  In  order  to  do  this  work  I  cover  branches 
carrying  pistillate  flowers  with  large  paper  bags  in  order  to  protect  the 
flowers  from  any  pollen  except  that  which  I  wish  to  introduce.  These 
bags  commonly  remain  in  place  two  or  three  weeks.  The  leaves  are  not 
removed  from  the  branches,  but  are  tucked  into  the  paper  bags.  I  found 
that  under  the  protection  of  these  bags  insects  increased  to  such  an  extent 
that  they  sometimes  destroyed  all  the  leaves,  and  almost  always  destroyed 
or  injured  so  many  of  them  that  the  branches  which  had  been  covered 
stood  out  distinctly  from  the  rest  of  the  tree  all  summer  long.  It  was 
necessary  for  me  to  resort  to  the  plan  of  dusting  the  leaves  thickly  with 
Persian  insect  powder,  or  spraying  them  with  Pyrox  before  enclosing  them 
in  the  bags. 

Of  course  the  bags  excluded  from  the  branches  so  covered  not 
only  birds  but  other  natural  enemies  of  insects.  Nevertheless, 
any  attempt  by  man  to  protect  or  propagate  insects  for  any 
purpose  soon  demonstrates  that  birds  are  very  potent  and  per- 
sistent enemies  of  those  insects.  Mr.  E.  P.  Felt,  working  under 
my  direction,  in  the  year  1891,  confined  numbers  of  gypsy 
moth  caterpillars  in  bags  of  netting  stretched  over  the  limbs  of 

1  Samuels,  E.  A.:  Birds  of  New  England,  1870,  p.  156. 

2  Useful  Birds  and  their  Protection,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1907,  pp.  109, 
110. 


17 


18 

apple  trees.  It  was  found  almost  impossible  to  complete  the 
experiments,  as  very  many  caterpillars  were  taken  from  the  nets 
by  birds.  I  saw  a  chipping  sparrow  break  through  the  nets  and 
secure  a  large  caterpillar.  More  than  50  species  of  birds  feed 
on  such  hairy  larvae,  and  Mr.  Felt  noted  that  60  per  cent  of 
the  caterpillars  used  in  these  experiments  were  taken  by  birds 
which  broke  into  the  nets.1 

Quantity  of  Insects  eaten  by  Young  Birds. 

Fortunately  the  young  of  insectivorous  birds  grow  almost  as 
rapidly  as  many  of  the  insects  on  which  they  feed.  Most  of 
the  young  of  the  smaller  birds  are  well  grown  and  able  to  fly 
in  from  one  to  three  weeks  after  they  leave  the  egg.  This  rapid 
growth  calls  for  a  tremendous  amount  of  animal  food.  A 
young  robin  fed  by  Professor  D.  Treadwell  made  no  gain  in 
weight  until  the  fourteenth  day,  when  it  received  68  angle- 
worms. Later  the  same  bird  consumed  in  a  day  nearly  one-half 
its  own  weight  of  beef.  A  young  man  eating  at  this  rate  would 
consume  about  70  pounds  of  steak  daily.2 

Mr.  C.  W.  Nash  fed  a  young  robin  daily  for  fifteen  days  from 
50  to  70  cutworms  or  earthworms.  By  experiment  he  found 
that  it  would  eat  165  cutworms  in  a  day.3 

Mr.  A.  H.  Kirkland  kept  and  fed  some  young  crows.  His 
records  show  that  on  less  than  8  ounces  of  food  daily  one  bird 
tended  to  lose  in  weight,  and  only  when  the  food  was  increased 
to  10  ounces  was  there  a  marked  tendency  toward  a  daily  gain. 
The  digestion  of  many  young  birds  is  so  rapid  that  the  stomach 
is  emptied  of  food  in  from  twenty  minutes  to  two  hours,  ac- 
cording to  the  character  of  the  food  eaten. 

Mr.  F.  H.  Mosher  watched  two  red-eyed  vireos  feeding  young, 
and  found  that  in  ten  hours  the  parents  together  brought  food  to 
the  nest  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  times.4 

Professor  Aughey  states  that  during  a  locust  year  in  Nebraska 
he  saw  a  pair  of  long-billed  marsh  wrens  in  an  hour  take  31 

1  Forbush,  E.  H.,  and  Fernald,  C.  H.:  The  Gypsy  Moth,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agri- 
culture, 1896,  pp.  215,  216. 

2  Treadwell,  D.:    Proceedings  of  the  Boston  Society  of  Natural  History,  Vol.6,  pp. 396-399. 
*  Birds  of  Ontario  in  their  Relation  to  Agriculture,  Ontario  Department  of  Agriculture,  Bul- 
letin No.  218,  p.  64. 

«  Useful  Birds  and  their  Protection,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1907,  pp.  45-52, 


19 

small  locusts  to  their  young,  and  a  pair  of  rock  wrens  took  in 
another  hour  32  locusts  to  their  nest.1 

Dr.  C.  M.  Weed  and  Mr.  W.  S.  Fiske  watched  the  nest  of  a 
chipping  sparrow  from  3.40  A.M.  to  7.49  P.M.2  The  birds  made 
almost  200  trips  to  the  nest  in  that  time.  They  were  busy 
from  daylight  to  dark,  and  the  food  so  far  as  identified  con- 
sisted largely  of  caterpillars. 

Quantity  of  Insect  Food  required  by  Adult  Birds. 

The  constant  activity  of  adult  birds  is  such  that  they  require 
an  enormous  quantity  of  food  to  repair  the  waste  of  the  tissues. 
Mr.  Robert  Ridgway  fed  a  pet  Arkansas  kingbird  120  grass- 
hoppers in  a  single  day.3  Those  who  examine  the  contents  of 
birds'  stomachs  find  in  them  the  remains  of  astonishing  num- 
bers of  insects.  Professor  Beal  says  that  oftentimes  when  a 
stomach  has  been  opened  and  the  contents  placed  in  a  pile,  the 
heap  expands  until  it  becomes  two  or  three  times  as  large  as 
the  stomach  was  originally  with  all  the  food  in  it.  He  found 
in  the  stomach  of  a  yellow-billed  cuckoo  remains  of  217  fall 
webworms,  and  in  another,  250  tent  caterpillars.  Sixty  grass- 
hoppers were  found  in  the  stomach  of  a  nighthawk.  Professor 
Harvey  told  me  that  he  took  500  mosquitoes  from  another 
nighthawk's  stomach.  Dr.  Judd  says  that  the  stomachs  of  four 
bank  swallows  contained  200  ants,  and  that  a  nighthawk  has 
been  known  to  eat  1,000  at  a  single  meal.  In  the  stomach  of  a 
Franklin's  gull  there  were  70  entire  grasshoppers  and  the  jaws 
of  56  more;  in  another,  90  grasshoppers  and  102  additional 
jaws;  in  another,  48  grasshoppers  and  70  jaws.4 

Some  estimates  of  the  quantities  of  insects  eaten  by  birds  in 
different  States  of  the  Union  have  been  made,  and  as  the 
figures  are  very  conservative  the  results  in  brief  are  given 
below.  The  birds  of  Massachusetts  destroy  21,000  bushels  of 
insects  daily  (estimated)  (Reed);  the  birds  of  Pennsylvania, 
2,880,000,000  insects  daily  (Kalbfus);  and  the  birds  of 
Nebraska,  170  carloads  each  day  (Bruner).  These  figures  may 

1  Aughey,  S.  A.:   Notes  on  the  Nature  of  the  Food  of  Nebraska  Birds,  First  Report  of  the 
United  States  Entomological  Commission,  1877,  Appendix,  p.  18. 
1  Bulletin  No.  55,  New  Hampshire  College  Agricultural  Experiment  Station,  1898. 
«  American  Naturalist,  Vol.  Ill,  1869,  p.  310. 
•  Useful  Birds  and  their  Protection,  1907,  pp.  57-61. 


20 

serve  to  give  some  idea  of  the  great  influence  that  birds  exert 
on  the  prevalence  of  insect  life. 

The  remarkable  appetites  of  birds  serve  to  make  them  sig- 
nally useful  when  they  destroy  our  insect  enemies,  but  pro- 
portionately harmful  when  they  feed  on  grain,  fruit  or  other 
crops.  The  chief  crop  injuries  attributable  to  birds  occur 
when,  during  migration,  birds  gather  excessively  in  one  locality. 
To  utilize  in  full  the  services  of  birds,  and  to  minimize  the 
losses  that  they  cause,  we  should  adopt  toward  them  the  policy 
of  the  natives  of  India,  who  refrain  from  killing  birds,  but  use 
ingenious  devices  to  frighten  them  away  from  fields  of  ripening 
grain.  It  may  be  necessary  at  times  to  kill  birds  to  protect 
crops  or  poultry,  but  such  birds  in  New  England  as  are  com- 
monly more  injurious  than  beneficial  may  be  counted  on  the 
fingers  of  one  hand. 

Crops  and  Trees  saved  from  Destruction  by  Birds. 

The  principal  service  of  birds  to  agriculture  consists  in  the 
prominent  part  that  they  play  perennially  in  the  control  of  in- 
sect pests.  Modern  agriculture,  both  intensive  and  extensive, 
produces  great  crops  of  the  same  food  plants  year  after  year  on 
the  same  or  contiguous  tracts,  thus  occasioning  an  excessive  mul- 
tiplication of  the  insects  that  feed  on  those  crops.  Other  crop- 
destroying  insects  are  introduced  from  foreign  lands.  Mean- 
while the  birds  that  feed  upon  them  are  destroyed  by  farmers, 
gunners,  boys,  cats,  dogs  and  other  enemies  or  agencies  intro- 
duced by  man,  while  their  nesting  places  are  broken  up  and 
their  natural  food  plants  destroyed  by  the  operations  of  agri- 
culture. Under  these  circumstances  we  need  not  wonder  that 
the  numbers  of  birds  often  are  insufficient  fully  to  copt  with 
our  greatly  increased  insect  enemies;  or  that,  deprived  of  their 
natural  food,  birds  attack  grain  or  fruit.  Frequently  it  becomes 
very  evident  that  birds  are  not  sufficiently  numerous  to  keep 
insect  pests  in  check.  Nevertheless,  they  suppress  insect  out- 
breaks more  often  than  is  generally  known.  By  increasing  their 
numbers  we  may  render  them  still  more  effective. 

In  presenting  the  following  accounts  of  the  suppression  of 
insect  invasions  by  birds,  one  cannot  always  guarantee  the 


21 

accuracy  of  the  observations  recorded,  but  the  testimony  is 
taken  from  what  seem  to  be  reliable  sources. 

Among  the  Orthoptera,  which  includes  the  grasshoppers  and 
crickets,  farmers  will  recognize  some  of  the  most  destructive 
insects  of  the  fields.  Practically  all  birds  feed  on  grasshoppers 
and  locusts,  and  many  on  crickets,  and  it  is  largely  due  to  this 
habit  that  these  insects  are  not  oftener  seriously  destructive. 
There  is  an  historical  occurrence  regarding  the  early  settlement 
of  Utah  by  the  Mormons  which  illustrates  the  value  of  birds  as 
destroyers  of  Orthoptera.  When  the  Mormons  established  their 
earliest  settlement  in  Utah,  their  first  crops  were  almost  de- 
stroyed by  myriads  of  black  crickets,  so  called,  that  came 
down  from  the  mountains.  These  orthopterous  insects  have 
been  identified  as  the  so-called  "western  cricket"  (Anabrm  pur- 


THE  "WESTERN  CRICKET." 

Its  hordes,  while  devastating  the  crops  of  the  Mormon  settlers,  were  in  turn 
destroyed  by  gulls. 

purascens).  The  crops  of  the  first  year  having  been  destroyed, 
the  Mormons  were  in  severe  straits,  but  they  had  seed  to  sow 
for  the  second  year.  The  grain  promised  well,  but  again  the 
crickets  appeared,  coming  down  from  the  mountains  in  swarms. 
The  Honorable  Geo.  Q.  Cannon  stated  that  they  came  down 
by  millions  and  destroyed  the  grain  crops.  Promising  fields  of 
wheat  were  cut  down  to  the  ground  in  a  single  day.  The 
people  were  in  despair.  Then  sea  gulls  came  by  hundreds  and 
thousands,  and,  before  the  grain  could  be  entirely  destroyed, 
devoured  the  insects,  so  that  the  fields  were  freed  from  them.1 

i  See  Irrigation  Age,  1894,  p.  188;  Insect  Life,  Vol.  VTI,  p.  275;  Annual  Report,  Massachusetts 
State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1871,  p.  76;  Annual  Report,  United  States  Commissioner  of  Agri- 
culture, 1871,  p.  79;  and  Second  Annual  Report,  United  States  Entomological  Commission, 
1878-79,  p.  166. 


22 

The  settlers  regarded  this  as  a  heaven-sent  miracle,  and  there 
stands  to-day  at  Salt  Lake  City  a  monument  costing  $40,000  to 
commemorate  the  event.  (See  frontispiece.) 

Among  the  most  persistent  enemies  of  grasshoppers  we  must 
count  crows.    There  was  a  tremendous  outbreak  of  these  insects 
in  Australia  in  the  spring  of  1894.    Dr.  N.  A.  Cobb  of  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture,  Sydney,  New  South  Wales,  tells  of  the 
immense  good  done  by  crows  in  the  Mossvale  district  in  de- 
stroying   the   pest.      For   weeks    crows   were    very    abundant 
throughout  this  region.     Dr.  Cobb  made  an  effort  to  estimate 
the  number.     Armed  with  a  telescope  he  mounted  one  of  the 
highest  hills  and  found  that  the  crows  were  about  equally  dis- 
tributed over  the  land.     He  estimated  that  the  Mossvale  dis- 
trict at  that  time  was  supporting  not  less  than  one-quarter  of  a 
million  crows,  and  it  was  his  belief  that  the  actual  number  was 
much  greater  than  this  estimate.    He  found  that  the  crows  were 
feeding  almost  entirely  on  grasshoppers.    By  examining  a  large 
number   of   stomachs   he   became   satisfied   that   each   crow's 
stomach  contained  at  that  time  nearly  if  not  quite  100  grass- 
hoppers.   He  assumed  that  the  stomach  of  each  crow  was  filled 
twice  a  day.    (Any  one  who  has  ever  attempted  to  keep  a  crow 
from  starvation  will  realize  that  this  was  a  very  moderate  esti- 
mate, and  that  a  crow  receiving  only  two  such  meals  a  day 
would  soon  become  very  attenuated.)     He  figured   that  the 
crows  in  that  district  were  destroying  daily  a  total  of  25,000,000 
grasshoppers,  and  as  this  crow  invasion  lasted  for  a  month  he 
put  the  total  number  of  grasshoppers  destroyed  in  the  district 
at  750,000,000.     This  number  reduced  to  tons  would  give  a 
total  weight  of  100  tons  of  grasshoppers.    But  he  said  that  even 
this  figure  failed  to  give  a  clear  idea  of  the  good  work  done  by 
these  crows.     By  careful  computation  he  arrived  at  thi  con- 
clusion that  these  750,000,000  grasshoppers  if  not  killed  by  the 
crows  would  have  consumed  over  2,000  tons  of  grass  and  other 
fodder.     He  thus  came  to  the  conclusion  that  through  this 
destruction  of  grasshoppers  the  crows  saved  thousands  of  tons 
of  grass  and  other  products  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Mossvale 
district.    He  says,  also,  that  a  significant  feature  of  the  locust 
plague  in  1891  in  the  western  part  of  New  South  Wales  was  the 


1 


TABLETS  TO  THE  SEA  GULLS. 

On  the  monument  erected  by  the  grateful  people  of  Salt  Lake  City  to  commemorate  the  advent 
of  the  gulls  that  by  destroying  the  crickets  saved  the  first  settlers  from  starvation.  (From 
Bird-Lore. ) 


23 

presence  of  large  flocks  of  these  black  police  in  parts  of  the  in- 
fested districts.1 

The  Australian  correspondence  of  the  Mark  Lane  Express  of 
March  7,  1892,  speaks  of  the  value  to  the  farmers  of  ibises  and 
other  birds  during  the  locust  invasions  of  that  year  in  the  Glen 
Thompson  district  near  Ballarat,  Victoria.  A  swarm  of  locusts 
was  noted  in  a  paddock,  and  when  it  was  feared  that  all  the 
sheep  would  have  to  be  sold  for  lack  of  grass,  flocks  of  starlings, 
spoonbills  and  cranes  appeared  and  destroyed  the  locusts  so 
completely  that  only  about  40  acres  of  grassland  were  ravaged.2 

Similar  services  were  performed  by  birds  in  the  western 
United  States  during  the  great  locust  visitations  that  followed 
the  settlement  of  the  States  in  the  Mississippi  valley.  When 
these  tremendous  irruptions  of  locusts  appeared,  practically  all 
birds,  from  the  tiny  kinglet  to  the  great  whooping  crane,  fed 
upon  them.  Professor  Samuel  Aughey,  who  investigated  the 
food  of  these  locust-eating  birds,  noted  many  localities  where 
the  crops  (or  a  part,  at  least)  were  saved  by  the  work  of  flocks 
of  birds  which  gathered  there  to  feed  on  the  locusts.  Birds 
were  effective  even  where,  as  in  one  case,  the  locusts  had 
hatched  to  the  number  of  300  to  the  square  foot.  In  1869,  in 
one  instance,  more  than  90  per  cent  of  the  insects  were  de- 
stroyed by  birds.  At  Fremont,  Nebraska,  S.  E.  Goodman  found 
that  the  locusts  came  up  "much  thicker"  than  the  wheat,  but 
he  said  that  the  birds  reduced  them  so  that  he  got  two-thirds 
of  a  crop,  and  he  asserted  that  other  farmers  had  a  similar  ex- 
perience. In  some  cases  the  sprouting  wheat  was  eaten  clean 
to  the  ground,  but  flocks  of  blackbirds  came,  destroyed  the 
locusts,  and  the  wheat  sprang  up  again  and  made  a  good  crop. 
Page  after  page  of  the  first  report  of  the  United  States  Entomo- 
logical Commission  was  devoted  to  testimony  of  this  kind. 

The  commissioners  themselves  say  that  "the  ocular  demon- 
stration of  the  usefulness  of  birds  was  so  full  and  complete 
during  the  past  year  that  it  was  impossible  to  entertain  any 
longer  a  doubt  upon  this  point."3 

1  Cobb,  N.  A.:  The  Common  Crow,  Miscellaneous  Publication  No.  103,  Department  of  Agri- 
culture, New  South  Wales,  1896,  pp.  10-12. 

*  Insect  Life,  Vol.  IV,  1891-92,  p.  409. 

»  Riley,  Packard  and  Thomas:  First  Report,  United  States  Entomological  Commission,  1877. 
pp.  335-342. 


24 

In  1919  the  State  of  Washington,  with  the  aid  of  agents  of 
the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture,  attempted  the 
control  of  the  coulee  cricket  which  had  devastated  large  areas 
in  the  vicinity  of  Adrian,  Washington.  According  to  Mr.  Max 
Reeher,  scientific  assistant  in  the  Bureau  of  Entomology,  United 
States  Department  of  Agriculture,  western  meadowlarks  ap- 
peared in  great  numbers  in  the  dry  coulee  in  autumn,  and  began 
eating  the  newly  hatched  crickets.  These  birds  were  so  effective 
in  controlling  the  pest  that  all  arrangements  for  a  1919  control 
campaign  were  abandoned.  It  is  said  that  "the  meadowlarks 
were  almost  entirely  responsible  for  the  complete  clean-up  of 
the  area."  1 

The  "seventeen-year  locust,"  so-called  ( Tibicina  septendecem)  > 
is  not  a  locust,  but  belongs  to  the  order  Homoptera,  containing 
cicadas,  plant  lice  and  scale  insects.  The  destructive  cicadas 
live  most  of  their  lives  underground,  where  they  feed  on  roots. 
They  are  attacked  by  many  birds  when  they  appear  above  the 
surface  of  the  earth.  Dr.  J.  B.  Smith  says  that  wherever  the 
English  sparrow  has  been  introduced,  the  periodical  cicada  is 
doomed.  He  says  that  these  birds  seem  to  have  an  intense 
hatred  for  this  insect,  attacking  it  and  pulling  it  to  pieces  in 
the  most  wanton  manner,  and  near  the  large  cities  where  these 
sparrows  are  numerous  entire  broods  of  the  cicada  have  already 
disappeared.  He  asserts  that  in  1889  these  insects  appeared  in 
Prospect  Park,  Brooklyn,  New  York,  and  in  the  surrounding 
woodland,  but  during  a  day's  careful  search  he  found  only  a 
single  branch  containing  their  eggs.2 

Broods  of  this  cicada  that  were  due  to  appear  in  certain 
localities  the  past  season  (1920)  failed  to  materialize;  perhaps 
Dr.  Smith's  account  explains  why.  Grackles  also  sometimes 
become  very  destructive  to  the  periodical  cicada.  Mr.  C.  L. 
Marlatt,  who  was  breeding  these  insects  experimentally,  says 
that  under  one  tree  a  count  and  estimate  was  made  of  more 
than  5,000  openings  from  which  the  insects  had  emerged,  and 
under  other  trees  the  openings  ranged  from  a  few  hundred  to 
3,000.  Notwithstanding  the  considerable  numbers  of  cicadas 
which  emerged,  not  one  was  seen  on  the  trees  during  theMays 

1  Burrill,  A.  C.:  California  Fish  and  Game,  Vol.  6,  No.  1,  January,  1920,  p.  38. 
1  Smith,  J.  B.:  Economic  Entomology,  1896,  pp.  142, 143. 


25 

and  weeks  following.  Each  morning  under  these  trees  a  con- 
siderable group  of  blackbirds  could  be  seen  which  evidently  had 
been  feeding  on  the  newly  issued  cicadas.  Scarcely  a  single 
cicada  escaped  the  sharp  eyes  of  these  birds.  He  says  that  the 
absolute  failure  of  these  insects  to  establish  themselves  when 
planted  in  such  enormous  numbers,  even  when  the  underground 
period  had  been  successfully  passed,  owing  to  the  relentless  on- 
slaught of  birds,  is  a  striking  illustration  of  what  is  happening 
year  after  year  with  successive  broods,  especially  in  thinly 
forested  regions,  and  accounts  for  their  great  reduction  in 
number  and  the  practical  disappearance  of  local  swarms  for- 
merly abundant.1 

Birds  sometimes  clear  plants  and  trees  of  insect  pests  before 
the  presence  of  these  pests  has  been  brought  to  our  notice.  In 
November,  1905,  on  returning  to  Wareham  after  a  long  absence, 
I  noted  a  flock  of  myrtle  warblers  and  some  goldfinches  that 
were  very  busy  among  the  apple  trees,  and  w^ere  searching  with 
particular  diligence  a  pear  tree  near  the  house.  I  was  told  that 
they  had  been  at  that  occupation  for  about  two  weeks.  I 
realized  at  once  that  they  must  have  been  engaged  upon  those 
leafless  trees  in  the  suppression  of  some  insect  pest.  A  careful 
examination  revealed  the  fact  that  the  birds  were  working  the 
trees  thus  carefully  for  little  cicada-shaped  insects,  which  were 
identified  by  Dr.  L.  O.  Howard  as  the  pear  tree  psylla  (Psylla 
pyri),  a  European  pest  introduced  into  this  country.  These 
insects  are  extremely  destructive  to  pear  trees.  Devastating 
invasions  have  occurred  in  Maryland,  Virginia  and  New  Jersey. 
These  jumping  plant  lice  are  extremely  prolific,  having  several 
broods  each  year.  In  the  infested  Maryland  orchards  the 
leaves  and  fruit  fell,  the  latter  before  it  was  half  grown.  Enor- 
mous secretions  of  honeydew  that  the  hosts  of  these  insects 
produced  from  the  sap  of  the  trees  fell  like  rain,  drenching  the 
horses  used  in  cultivating  the  orchard,  and  running  down  the 
trunks  in  streams.  On  my  farm,  however,  the  birds  which  had 
been  engaged  for  two  weeks  in  clearing  these  insects  from  the 
pear  trees  had  been  so  successful  that  it  was  difficult  for  me  to 
find  any  of  the  insects  on  the  trees,  and  in  a  few  days  I  could 
not  discover  even  a  single  specimen.  But  even  after  that  the 

1  Proceedings,  Entomological  Society  of  Washington  [District  of  Columbia],  Vol.  IX,  1907, 
p.  18. 


26 

birds  looked  over  the  trees  occasionally  and  still  found  a  few. 
By  the  end  of  another  week  they  had  exhausted  the  supply,  and 
we  never  have  been  able  to  find  a  single  specimen  of  these 
psyllas  since.  Dr.  Howard  intimates  in  a  bulletin  on  this 
insect  that  the  causes  which  control  the  increase  and  decrease 
in  numbers  are  not  fully  understood.  The  birds  constitute  one 
agency  of  control  that  we  can  understand.1 

Professor  H.  A.  Surface  reports  that  Mr.  Mann,  a  well-known 
pear  grower  near  Rochester,  New  York,  told  him  that  one  year 
the  pear  tree  psylla  had  destroyed  his  entire  pear  crop,  amount- 
ing to  thousands  of  dollars  in  value,  and  that  in  the  autumn 
the  eggs  of  the  insects  were  so  numerous  that  there  seemed  to 
be  no  prospect  of  a  crop  the  following  year,  but  during  the 
winter  white-breasted  and  red-breasted  nuthatches  worked  in 

flocks  in  this  orchard,  with  the 
result  that  in  the  spring  Mr. 
Mann  could  hardly  find  an 
insect.  Professor  Surface  asserts 
that  these  birds  saved  Mr.  Mann 
thousands  of  dollars  in  that  one 
winter.2 

One  morning  in  the  autumn 
of  1904  I  saw  in  some  poplar 

The  red-breasted  nuthatch;  one  of  the  trees  near  the  shore  of  the  MuS- 

species  that  saved  a  pear  grower  thou-  ketaquid    River,    ConCOrd,   MaS- 
sands  of   dollars  in  one   winter  by 

destroying   eggs    of   the    pear    tree  SachusettS,     a    flock      of      myrtle 

warblers  and  black-poll  warblers 

attacking  a  swarm  of  plant  lice.  The  insects  appeared  in 
myriads;  there  were  so  many  that  it  was  impossible  for  me  to 
estimate  their  numbers.  They  were  mainly  in  the  perfect 
form,  and  some  of  them  were  in  flight.  The  birds  pursued  these 
through  the  air,  but  also  sought  those  that  remained  on  the 
trunks  and  branches.  I  watched  the  operations  of  these  birds 
at  intervals  all  day.  Toward  night  some  of  the  insects  had 
scattered  to  neighboring  trees,  and  a  few  of  the  birds  were  pur- 
suing them  there;  but  most  of  the  latter  remained  all  day 
about  the  place  where  the  swarm  was  first  seen.  Hour  after 

1  Useful  Birds  and  their  Protection,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1907,  pp.  153, 154. 

2  Surface,  H.  A.:    Zodlogical  Quarterly  Bulletin,  Division  of  Zoology,  Pennsylvania  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  Vol.  1,  No.  3,  November  15,  1903,  p.  31. 


27 

hour  the  insects  decreased  rapidly,  until  just  before  sunset  it 
was  difficult  to  find  any  of  them.  But  the  birds  remaining 
until  nearly  dark  seemed  still  to  find  a  few  insects  on  the 
higher  branches.  The  insects  which  I  secured  for  identification 
were  liberated  or  destroyed  during  the  night,  probably  by  white- 
footed  mice  which  infested  the  camp.  The  next  morning  at 
sunrise  I  was  unable,  after  a  very  careful  search,  to  find  a  single 
plant  louse  on  the  trees.  The  birds,  however,  were  still  there. 
They  disappeared  one  by  one,  but  the  last  bird  to  linger  was 
more  successful  than  I,  for  it  still  found  a  few,  but  soon  gave 
up  the  attempt  and  left  for  more  fruitful  fields.  A  few  insects 
might  have  escaped  by  flight,  but  the  next  year  I  was  unable 
to  find  a  single  specimen  in  the  locality.  This  apparently  com- 
plete destruction  of  these  insects  may  have  been  due  in  some 
part  to  the  cold  of  the  winter  of  1904-05,  but  the  work  of  the 
birds  was  very  thorough.1 

In  the  year  1900  the  introduced  destructive  pea  louse  (Macro- 
siphum  pisi)  was  very  prevalent,  and  was  abundant  on  my  farm 
at  Wareham.  We  expected  it  to  appear  in  the  spring  of  1901. 
The  insect  came  as  expected,  but  failed  to  increase  as  it  had  dur- 
ing the  previous  season.  We  found  that  chipping  sparrows  were 
eating  them,  and  for  two  years  these  birds  came  wherever  peas 
were  planted  and  fed  on  the  insects  day  after  day  so  long  as 
any  could  be  found.  A  row  of  late  peas  100  yards  in  length, 
an  eighth  of  a  mile  from  where  the  early  peas  were  planted, 
became  infested  with  these  aphides  in  August,  but  the  chipping 
sparrows  soon  found  them  and  haunted  the  vines  day  after  day 
until  the  insects  became  so  reduced  in  numbers  as  to  cause  no 
further  injury.2  Probably  this  habit  of  the  chippy  was  wide- 
spread, for  Mr.  H.  W.  Olds  and  Dr.  Judd  both  have  observed  it.3 

Every  farmer  knows  that  some  of  the  greatest  pests  of  the 
farm  are  found  among  the  Coleoptera,  or  beetles.  The  leaf- 
eating  beetles  are  among  the  most  destructive,  and  of  these 
perhaps  the  most  notorious  American  species  is  the  Colorado 
potato  beetle  (Leptinotarsa  decemlineata) .  Every  year  the 
farmers  of  the  United  States  spend  an  enormous  sum  for  labor 

1  Useful  Birds  and  their  Protection,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1907,  pp.  70-72. 

»  Massachusetts  Department  of  Agriculture,  Economic  Ornithology  Bulletin  No.  4,  1920,  pp. 
28, 29. 

•  Bulletin  No.  15,  Division  of  Biological  Survey,  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture 
1901,  p.  77. 


28 

and  insecticides  to  check  this  beetle,  and  every  year,  notwith- 
standing this  great  expense,  it  does  considerable  damage  to  the 
potato  crop.  Several  kinds  of  birds  destroy  this  insect,  and  a 
few  species  in  particular  are  known  to  be  very  effective.  Pro- 
fessor Beal  gives  a  striking  instance  of  the  effect  produced  upon 
this  pest  by  the  rose-breasted  grosbeak.  A  small  potato  field 
had  been  so  badly  infested  with  the  beetles  that  the  vines  were 
completely  riddled.  Rose-breasted  grosbeaks  visited  that  field 
every  day,  and  finally  brought  their  fledged  young  to  the  top- 
most rail  of  the  fence  and  fed  them  there  with  the  beetles  as 
they  were  gathered  from  the  plants.  On  a  careful  inspection  a 
few  days  later  not  a  single  beetle  or  larva  could  be  found.  The 
birds  had  cleared  the  field  and  saved  the  potatoes.1  Many 
similar  instances  have  been  reported. 

Early  in  the  last  decade  Dr.  Thomas  E.  Miller,  then  president 
of  the  State  negro  college  at  Orangeburg,  South  Carolina,  told 
Mr.  James  Henry  Rice,  Jr.,  then  chief  game  warden  of  that 
State,  that  he  had  no  trouble  with  potato  beetles.  Investiga- 
tion revealed  the  fact  that  bobwhites  were  abundant  around  his 
fields,  where  no  shooting  was  allowed.  His  fields  had  been  prac- 
tically free  from  the  beetles  for  years,  while  in  the  same  county 
and  in  adjoining  counties  where  birds  were  shot  off  it  was  neces- 
sary to  make  war  on  these  beetles  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  the  potato  season.  Four  years  later  Mr.  Rice  himself  planted 
potatoes  in  a  field  of  20  acres  where  for  two  years  previously  all 
shooting  had  been  prohibited  by  a  land  company  that  had 
bought  the  tract.  Mr.  Rice  allowed  no  shotgun  to  be  carried 
on  the  place.  Six  coveys  of  bobwhites  came  into  the  field  to 
feed.  The  potatoes  were  not  sprayed,  as  it  was  impossible  at 
the  right  time  to  get  help  to  do  the  work.  Paris  green  and 
lime  were  applied  once,  but  the  young  man  in  charge  wate  taken 
ill  and  the  insecticide  was  washed  off  immediately  by  heavy 
rains.  The  beetles  swarmed  into  the  field.  Mr.  Rice  watched 
them  and  saw  the  bobwhites  eating  both  beetles  and  larvae,  and 
clearing  the  rows.  The  field  was  left  to  the  birds  and  suffered 
no  appreciable  injury  from  the  beetles.  In  1915  I  had  a  similar 
experience  at  my  farm  with  a  small  patch  of  potatoes  and  a 
flock  of  bobwhites. 

i  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture,  Farmers  Bulletin  No.  54, 1904,  p.  29. 


CRANBERRY  PLANTS  SAVED  BY  ROBINS. 

The  first  setting  was  destroyed  by  white  grubs,  but  robins  dug  out  the  grubs  and  the 
second  setting  was  almost  uninjured. 


29 

The  imported  elm-leaf  beetle  (Galerucdla  luteold)  has  de- 
stroyed many  elms  in  New  England.  In  recent  years,  however, 
it  has  not  been  so  destructive  as  formerly.  One  reason  for  this 
may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  cedar  waxwings  have  become  a 
notable  enemy  of  the  beetle.  Mr.  Outram  Bangs  gives  an 
instance  where,  in  Wareham,  Massachusetts,  these  birds  saved 
about  20  elm  trees  from  destruction  by  these  beetles.  About 
the  year  1904,  when  the  trees  were  15  to  20  feet  in  height,  they 
were  badly  infested,  but  waxwings  came  regularly  to  the  trees 
in  constantly  increasing  numbers,  searching  every  limb  and 
twig.  They  often  hung  from  the  ends  of  the  boughs,  like  chick- 
adees, spying  out  the  insects  until  they  cleared  them  off.  The 
trees  were  not  afterwards  troubled.1 

Mr.  J.  M.  Van  Huyck  informed  me  that  in  1911  cedar  wax- 
wings  appeared  in  flocks  on  the  elm  trees  of  Lee,  Massachu- 
setts, and  in  some  cases  absolutely  cleared  the  trees  of  this  pest.2 

In  1915  Mr.  J.  M.  Stone  of  Greenwich,  Massachusetts,  wrote 
that  cedar  waxwings  had  cut  down  the  elm-leaf  beetle  to  a  con- 
siderable extent,  and  that  he  had  seen  them  preying  on  the 
beetles  by  hundreds;  that  sometimes  20  or  30  birds  alighted  on 
a  single  limb,  staying  there  five  or  ten  minutes,  and  they  were 
continually  going  through  the  trees  taking  the  beetles  from  both 
limbs  and  leaves.3 

Dr.  S.  D.  Judd  recorded  the  reduction  by  birds  of  an  out- 
break of  locust-leaf  miners  at  Marshall  Hall,  Maryland.  He 
asserted  that  this  beetle  (Odontota  dorsalis)  became  so  abundant 
that  it  turned  the  green  of  the  locust  trees  into  an  unsightly 
brown.  Practically  all  the  birds  ate  these  beetles  freely,  and 
aided  by  their  united  attack  in  reducing  the  numbers  of  the 
insects  to  such  an  extent  that  they  did  not  appear  subsequently 
in  sufficient  force  to  repeat  the  damage.4 

In  the  year  1914,  on  my  farm  at  Wareham,  a  part  of  a 
newly  set  cranberry  bog  was  attacked  by  white  grubs  of  the 
May  beetle  and  nearly  every  plant  was  killed.  This  grub 

1  First  Annual  Report  of  the  State  Ornithologist,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture, 
1908,  p.  13. 

*  Fourth  Annual  Report  of  the  State  Ornithologist,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture, 
1911,  p.  19. 

»  Eighth  Annual  Report  of  the  State  Ornithologist,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture, 
1915,  p.  27. 

«  Bulletin  No.  15,  Division  of  Biological  Survey,  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture, 
1901,  p.  35. 


30 

remains  in  the  soil  destroying  the  roots  of  plants  for  several 
seasons,  and  usually  is  killed  on  cranberry  bogs  by  flooding 
with  water.  In  this  case  it  was  impracticable  to  flood  the 
bog  during  the  summer.  In  May,  1915,  after  new  vines  had 
been  set,  numbers  of  robins  were  seen  at  work  upon  the  tract. 
They  dug  into  the  sand  with  their  beaks  and  pulled  out  the 
grubs.  In  a  very  few  cases  the  roots  of  the  vines  were  cut  off 
by  the  grubs,  and  these  vines  the  robins  pulled  up  and  dis- 
carded, but  dug  out  the  insects.  The  birds  worked  so  diligently 
that  practically  no  grubs  escaped.  A  few  came  to  maturity  and 
emerged  from  the  sand  as  beetles  and  disappeared,  but  ap- 
parently the  birds  got  all  the  rest.  As  a  result  the  new  vines 
nearly  all  survived.  No  other  bird  except  the  robin  was  seen 
to  attack  these  grubs,  although  others  may  have  done  so.1 

Butterflies  and  moths  are  not  usually  destructive;  some  of 
them  do  not  feed  at  all  in  their  perfect  state,  but  the  larvse  or 
caterpillars  of  most  species  feed  on  the  foliage  or  other  parts  of 
trees  or  plants.  Many  of  these  larvse  may  be  ranked  among  the 
most  destructive  pests.  The  caterpillars  and  pupae  are  eaten 
by  many  birds.  Many  caterpillars  are  armed  with  spines  or 
stiff  hairs,  and  these  species  are  not  usually  eaten  by  birds  in 
such  numbers  as  are  those  that  are  not  so  protected.  Never- 
theless, many  birds  feed  more  or  less  on  hairy  caterpillars.  Re- 
garding this  habit  of  the  blue  jay,  Mr.  J.  B.  Kirtland  avers 
that  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  he  noticed  one  of  these  birds  engaged 
in  tearing  open  the  web  of  the  tent  caterpillar  (Clisiocampa 
Americana).  This  seemed  so  unusual  that  he  was  led  to  watch 
the  proceedings  of  the  jays,  and  in  so  doing  found  that  before 
the  young  birds  had  passed  from  the  care  of  the  parents  most 
of  the  caterpillar  nests  had  been  broken  into,  many  were  torn 
into  shreds,  and  the  number  of  occupants  evidently  diminished. 
Within  two  or  three  years  not  a  caterpillar  was  to  be  seen  in 
the  neighborhood.2  Wilson  Flagg  was  one  of  the  first  to  report 
similar  habits  of  the  Baltimore  oriole.3 

A  correspondent  from  Rockville,  Connecticut,  contributes  an 
item  regarding  the  Baltimore  oriole  as  an  enemy  of  the  tent 

1  Eighth  Annual  Report,  State  Ornithologist,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture, 
1915,  pp.  26,  27. 

*  Atlantic  Monthly,  Vol.  25,  1870,  pp.  483,  484. 

»  Annual  Report,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1861  (1862),  Abstract,  p.  50. 


31 

caterpillar.  A  friend  noticed  a  large  caterpillar's  nest  at  the 
top  of  a  tree  in  his  apple  orchard,  and  while  wondering  how  it 
could  be  reached  he  saw  that  an  oriole  had  flown  into  the  tree 
and  had  gone  at  once  to  the  nest  which  it  soon  tore  open  with 
its  bill  and  then  proceeded  to  devour  the  occupants.  It  flew 
away,  but  returned  speedily  with  its  mate,  when  the  two  con- 
tined  to  feast  upon  the  caterpillars  until  apparently  not  a 
single  one  was  left.1 

For  five  years  my  own  orchard  was  kept  practically  free  of 
caterpillars  by  birds.  In  the  spring  of  1905  there  were  two 
nests  which  appeared  to  have  escaped  the  attacks  of  birds,  and 
one  day  I  concluded  to  remove  them,  but  was  called  to  lunch 
and  left  the  trees  for  half  an  hour.  Upon  my  return  the  largest 
tent  had  been  torn  open  and  many  dead  caterpillars  were 
scattered  about  mutilated  in  the  manner  characteristic  of  the 
Baltimore  oriole.  Several  large  holes  in  the  web  showed  how 
they  had  been  extracted.  Many  caterpillars  were  lying  dead 
upon  the  ground.  The  tents  were  left  to  the  tender  mercy  of 
the  birds,  and  the  occupants  were  destroyed  by  them.2  Many 
people  have  observed  this  habit  of  the  Baltimore  oriole. 

Mr.  A.  W.  Butler,  in  speaking  of  the  yellow-billed  cuckoo, 
says  that  he  has  known  it  to  destroy  every  tent  caterpillar  in  a 
badly  infested  orchard,  and  tear  up  all  the  nests  in  half  a 
day.3 

Mr.  Harry  G.  Higbee,  superintendent  of  the  Bird  Sanctuary 
of  the  Massachusetts  Audubon  Society,  at  Sharon,  Massachu- 
setts, wrote  on  May  31,  1919,  that  many  nests  of  tent  cater- 
pillars had  been  noted  there  early  in  the  season.  But  he  had 
watched  cuckoos  puncturing  them  and  eating  the  caterpillars. 
Cuckoos  had  been  so  numerous  there  that  the  injury  by  this 
caterpillar  had  practically  ceased. 

Mr.  Henry  H.  Seaver  of  Templeton,  Massachusetts,  asserts 
that  a  family  of  starlings  which  had  built  a  nest  in  the  wain- 
scoting of  a  room  in  his  house  destroyed  a  small  colony  of  the 
destructive  introduced  brown-tail  moth  (Euproctis  chrysorrhoea.) 
The  starlings  found  an  entrance  to  the  house  through  a  waste- 

i  Cultivator  and  Country  Gentleman,  Vol.  XLIV,  1879,  p.  407. 

»  Useful  Birds  and  their  Protection,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1907,  pp.  117, 
118. 
1  Report,  Indiana  Department  of  Geology,  Natural  Resources  of  Indiana,  1897  (1898),  p.  824. 


32 

pipe  hole,  built  their  nest  and  laid  their  eggs  in  the  space  be- 
tween the  outer  boarding  and  the  wainscoting.  When  the 
young  were  hatched  it  was  noted  that  the  parent  birds  were 
bringing  caterpillars  of  the  brown-tail  moth  and  the  gypsy 
moth  to  their  young.  There  were  no  such  caterpillars  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  house,  so  the  birds  were  watched  and 
were  seen  to  bring  them  from  an  ancient  apple  tree  in  a  pasture 
some  distance  away.  They  practically  cleared  this  tree  of  these 
destructive  insects  before  their  food  campaign  for  their  family 
was  over.1 

Dr.  Walter  E.  Collinge,  the  eminent  British  economic  orni- 
thologist, writing  of  the  caterpillar  of  the  currant  or  magpie 
moth,  asserts  that  it  requires  about  170  of  these  to  weigh  an 
ounce.  In  their  early  stages  about  200  will  aggregate  that 
weight.  He  says  that  he  has  seen  currant  plantations  infested 
with  them,  and  by  counting  the  number  to  a  bush  has  estimated 
nearly  1,000,000  to  a  plantation,  or  a  total  of  2^  hundred- 
weight. Had  such  a  horde  been  left  undisturbed  they  would 
quickly  have  consumed  all  the  foliage  and  ruined  the  crop,  but 
thanks  to  the  birds  that  attacked  them  they  were  reduced  to 
innocuous  numbers  long  before  they  had  an  opportunity  of 
devastating  the  plantation.2 

The  forest  tent  caterpillar  (Malacosoma  disstria),  a  first-class 
forest  pest,  is  eaten  by  many  birds.  Miss  Mary  B.  Sherman 
of  Ogdensburg,  New  York,  wrote  on  May  18,  1900,  that  the 
town  was  then  full  of  birds,  and  they  were  doing  good  work 
feeding  on  the  forest  tent  caterpillar.  She  noted  sparrows, 
warblers,  cuckoos,  robins  and  cedar  waxwings  attacking  these 
larvae.  On  May  26  she  wrote  that  there  were  practically  no 
caterpillars  left.  They  hatched  in  large  numbers,  but  cold 
weather  evidently  killed  many,  and  the  birds  appeared  to  have 
destroyed  the  remainder.3 

Even  the  very  hairy  tussock-moth  caterpillar  (Hemerocampa 
leucostigma)  has  a  number  of  bird  enemies.  Dr.  Sterling  of 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  said  that  in  the  summer  of  1880  the  elms  along 
Euclid  Avenue  in  his  vicinity  were  attacked  by  these  cater- 
pillars. Thousands  were  destroyed  by  the  people  in  the 

1  Bulletin,  Massachusetts  Audubon  Society,  Vol.  I,  No.  9,  January,  1918,  p.  7. 

*  Agricultural  Magazine,  Vol.  10,  No.  7,  May,  1919,  p.  126. 

3  Felt,  E.  P.:  Sixteenth  Annual  Report,  New  York  State  Entomologist,  1901,  p.  1019. 


33 

neighborhood,  but  when  winter  set  in  tens  of  thousands  still 
remained  on  the  outer  branches  beyond  reach.  About  Decem- 
ber 1  a  pair  of  hairy  woodpeckers  came  and  fed  daily  on  the 
pupse.  In  the  course  of  that  month  and  the  next,  over  a 
dozen  more  of  the  birds  appeared,  and  their  industry  in  regard 
to  this  particular  pest  attracted  the  attention  of  passersby. 
When  March  came  round  not  a  cocoon  was  to  be  seen  in  places 
where  the  branches  had  been  literally  white  with  them,  —  and 
this  was  the  last  that  was  seen  of  the  pest.1 

Mr.  A.  W.  Anthony  asserts  that  in  southern  California  the 
passion  vine  is  infested  by  a  red  butterfly  (Agraulis  vanilla), 
the  larvae  of  which  feed  extensively  upon  this  plant.  The  plants 
are  often  completely  defoliated,  and  become  so  unsightly  that 
in  some  regions  many  people  have  destroyed  their  vines  and 
replaced  them  with  others  less  liable  to  breed  a  horde  of  pests. 
Mr.  Anthony  says  that  he  called  on  a  friend  living  in  the 
suburbs  of  San  Diego,  who  had  a  large  number  of  unusually 
thrifty  passion  vines  climbing  over  his  fence.  Upon  inquiring 
the  reason  of  their  freedom  from  the  inevitable  pest  he  was  in- 
formed that  a  pair  of  road  runners  had  paid  daily  visits  to 
these  vines  for  several  months,  climbing  through  them  in  all 
directions  until  they  had  captured  the  last  caterpillar.2 

The  destruction  of  hairy  caterpillars  by  birds  is  considerable, 
but  instances  where  they  have  killed  out  hairless  caterpillars 
probably  are  much  more  numerous.  The  late  E.  W.  Wood  of 
Newton,  Massachusetts,  formerly  a  well-known  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  informed  me  that 
during  a  season  when  spring  cankerworms  (Anisopteryx  vernatd) 
became  quite  numerous  in  his  orchard,  a  pair  of  Baltimore 
orioles  fed  daily  on  the  worms,  meantime  building  a  nest  near 
by.  When  the  young  were  hatched  the  parents  redoubled  their 
diligence,  sometimes  carrying  ten  or  more  worms  to  their  nest 
at  one  time.  Soon  the  cankerworms  in  that  orchard  had  dis- 
appeared. The  foliage  and  fruit  were  saved  for  that  year, 
and  for  several  succeeding  years  no  noticeable  damage  was 
done.3 

Cedar  waxwings  are  very  destructive  to  canker  worms,  and, 

i  Sterling,  E.:  Insect  Life,  Vol.  Ill,  1891,  p.  295. 

*  Auk,  Vol.  XIV,  1897,  p.  217. 

»  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  Crop  Report,  Bulletin  V,  1894,  p.  30. 


34 

in  fact,  most  birds  feed  on  them.  Several  years  ago  I  noted  a 
serious  infestation  of  this  pest  in  an  orchard  in  Westborough, 
Massachusetts,  that  finally  was  nearly  cleared  up  by  birds, 
prominent  among  which  were  flocks  of  cedar  waxwings  which 
spent  a  great  part  of  the  daylight  hours  feeding  on  these  cater- 
pillars. 

Other  hairless  caterpillars  taken  by  birds  are  cabbage  worms 
and  climbing  cutworms.  The  chipping  sparrow  and  the  song 
sparrow  have  been  noted  frequently  as  enemies  of  the  cabbage 
worm  (Pontia  rapes).  Dr.  S.  Schneck  says  that  he  was  observ- 
ing the  cabbage  patch  early  in  the  morning,  from  daybreak  to 
a  short  time  after  sunrise,  when  he  chanced  to  see  a  number  of 
chipping  sparrows  taking  cabbage  worms.  By  continuing  his 
observations  he  found  that  they  kept  up  this  practice  every 
morning  so  long  as  the  worms  lasted.1  In  1901  I  had  a  similar 
experience  with  both  chipping  sparrows  and  song  sparrows.2 

Mr.  J.  B.  Dunn  of  Corpus  Christi,  Texas,  reports  a  bird 
enemy  of  the  cabbage  looper  (Autographa  brassicce).  He  is 
quoted  by  Dr.  F.  H.  Chittenden  of  the  Bureau  of  Entomology 
to  the  effect  that  ua  bird  known  locally  as  jackdaw  (Megaquisca- 
lus  major)  [probably  the  great-tailed  grackle]  was  particularly 
fond  of  these  cabbage  loopers."  These  birds  alighted  in  the 
fields  and  fed  on  the  larvse  daily  until  they  cleaned  them  up 
and  saved  the  crop.3 

Mr.  J.  L.  Harris  reports  that  another  cabbage  pest,  the 
diamond-back  moth  (Plutella  maculipennis)  was  extirpated  from 
his  patch  by  a  flock  of  blackbirds.4 

The  larva  of  the  snow-white  linden  moth  (Ennomos  sub- 
signarius)  no  doubt  is  eaten  by  many  native  birds,  but  perhaps, 
owing  to  a  scarcity  of  native  birds  in  the  seventh  decads  of  the 
last  century,  it  became  a  great  pest  in  many  cities  of  the 
eastern  United  States.  This  worm  seems  to  be  the  special 
prey  of  the  English  sparrow.  A.  R.  Grote,  the  well-known 
entomologist,  wrote  in  1883,  "Many  will  recollect  that  the 
maple  and  other  shade  trees  in  Brooklyn  and  New  York  used 
to  be  completely  defoliated  by  the  middle  of  summer  by  the 

i  American  Naturalist,  Vol.  XIV,  February,  1880,  p.  130. 

*  Economic  Ornithology,  Bulletin  No.  4,  Massachusetts  Department  of  Agriculture,  1920, 
pp.  29,  30. 

»  Bulletin  No.  33,  Division  of  Entomology,  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture,  1902, 
p.  68. 

«  Transactions,  Minnesota  State  Horticultural  Society,  January,  1878,  p.  63. 


35 

common   brown   drop   or   measuring  worm.  .  .  .  The   English 
sparrow  rid  us  of  this  nuisance;   it  ate  every  one  of  them."  * 

Dr.  John  B.  Smith,  entomologist  of  the  New  Jersey  Experi- 
ment Station,  wrote  as  follows  regarding  this  habit  of  the  house 
sparrow :  — 

On  the  evening  of  July  17  (1908),  Newark,  Elizabeth,  Paterson,  Jersey 
City  and  some  of  the  surrounding  towns  were  treated  to  a  unique  experi- 
ence —  a  veritable  swarm  of  snow-white  moths  flying  around  the  electric 
lights  and  giving  the  appearance  of  a  snowstorm  in  midsummer.  ...  On 
the  morning  after  the  flight  the  sparrows  apparently  became  very  busy 
soon  after  daylight,  and  all  that  was  left  to  mark  it  was  numerous  quan- 
tities of  wings  without  bodies.  .  .  .  This  flight  was  composed  of  indi- 
viduals of  the  snow-white  Eugonia,  known  everywhere  half  a  century  ago 
as  the  parent  of  the ' '  span  worm  " .  It  was  at  that  time  the  most  abundant 
and  destructive  shade-tree  insect  in  the  eastern  United  States,  and  its 
caterpillars,  feeding  upon  most  of  the  shade  trees,  were  a  nuisance  by  their 
habit  of  suspending  themselves  by  threads  from  the  foliage  upon  which 
they  fed,  and  dropping  upon  pedestrians  moving  beneath.2 

The  sparrows  were  introduced  into  this  country  to  protect 
street  trees  and  park  trees  from  these  caterpillars.  They  did 
their  work  well.  It  was  not  long  before  the  caterpillars  practi- 
cally disappeared  from  the  cities.  Unfortunately,  however,  the 
sparrows,  by  driving  out  the  native  birds,  brought  about  an 
increase  of  tussock  moths,  which  for  several  years  ravaged 
many  street  and  park  trees. 

The  pupae  of  the  codling  moth  are  eaten  by  many  birds. 
These  moths  spin  cocoons  beneath  scales  of  bark  on  the  trunks 
and  large  limbs  of  apple  trees,  where  they  are  attacked,  par- 
ticularly during  winter,  by  woodpeckers  and  titmouses.  Mr. 
A.  P.  Martin  of  Petaluma,  California,  believed  that  there  the 
destruction  of  this  apple-tree  pest  was  attributable  to  the  red- 
shafted  flicker.  He  said  that  in  examining  the  crevices  of  the 
bark  for  codling  moths  in  the  spring  he  failed  to  find  any,  where 
there  had  been  thousands  in  the  fall.  Upon  investigation  he 
found  numbers  of  cocoons,  but  in  every  case  the  occupant  of  the 
cocoon  was  absent.  In  the  scales  of  bark  over  each  cocoon  he 
found  small  holes  where  the  pupse  had  been  drawn  out.  He 
noticed  large  numbers  of  flickers  in  the  orchards  during  the 
early  spring  months  industriously  examining  the  trunks  and 

»  Canadian  Entomologist,  Vol.  XV,  1883,  p.  235. 

»  Report,  New  Jersey  Agricultural  Experiment  Station,  1908,  pp.  317,  318. 


36 

large  limbs  of  the  fruit  trees,  and  suspected  at  the  time  that 
they  were  in  search  of  apple  worms.  He  noticed,  also,  that 
these  birds  were  busy  around  the  sheds  where  he  had  stored  his 
winter  apples  and  pears,  and  that  they  got  every  worm  that 
they  could  reach,  even  pecking  holes  deeply  in  the  wood  where 
there  were  cocoons  in  nail  holes  or  crevices  in  the  boards.  As 
a  result  of  several  hours'  search  (at  various  times),  before  the 
time  for  the  moths  to  emerge,  he  found  only  one  worm,  and 
that  one  had  barely  escaped,  for  others  had  been  taken  out 
within  a  quarter  of  an  inch  of  its  hiding  place.1 

In  some  localities  the  downy  woodpecker  is  very  destructive 
to  the  larvae  of  the  codling  moth.  Dr.  Rufus  H.  Pettit,  ento- 
mologist to  the  Michigan  Experiment  Station,  records  that  in 
almost  every  case  where  cocoons  of  this  insect  were  concealed 
under  flakes  of  bark  the  birds  had  found  them.2  It  is  interest- 
ing to  note,  also,  that  several  observers  have  seen  this  wood- 
pecker extract  the  young  apple  worms  from  the  calyx  end  of 
the  fruit  without  any  appreciable  injury  to  the  apple. 

The  following  is  a  translation  from  Bernard  Altum,  showing 
how  in  Europe  birds  save  trees  by  destroying  eggs  of  the  gypsy 
moth. 

In  the  year  1848  endless  numbers  of  the  larvae  of  Bombyx  dispar  had 
eaten  every  leaf  from  the  trees  of  Count  Wodzicki,  so  that  they  were 
perfectly  bare.  In  the  fall  all  the  branches  and  limbs  were  covered  with 
the  egg  clusters.  After  he  had  recognized  the  impracticability  of  it,  he 
gave  up  all  endeavor  to  remove  them  by  hand,  and  prepared  to  see  his 
beautiful  trees  die.  Towards  winter  numerous  flocks  of  titmice  and  wrens 
came  daily  to  the  trees.  The  egg  clusters  disappeared.  In  the  spring 
twenty  pairs  of  titmice  nested  in  the  garden,  and  the  larva  plague  was 
noticeably  reduced.  In  the  year  1850  the  small  feathered  garden  police 
had  cleaned  his  trees,  so  that  he  saw  them  during  the  entire  summer  in 
their  most  beautiful  verdure.3 

The  wrens  referred  to  here  probably  were  kinglets  (Regulus 
cnstatus),  formerly  known  as  golden-crested  wrens. 

American  birds  apparently  have  not  yet  learned  to  destroy 
great  quantities  of  the  eggs  of  the  gypsy  moth,  although  several 
species  are  said  to  eat  them;  but  nearly  50  species  are  now 

i  Pacific  Rural  Press,  Vol.  XXXIX,  No.  23,  June  7,  1890,  p.  580. 

*  Bulletin  No.  222,  Michigan  Experiment  Station,  December,  1904,  p.  89. 

*  Forstzoologie,  Vol.  II,  1880,  p.  324. 


37 

known  to  destroy  other  forms  of  this  moth,  and  I  have  exam- 
ined two  localities  where  birds  are  believed  to  have  actually 
extirpated  small  colonies  of  this  insect. 

Decrease  of  Birds  followed  by  Increase  of  Destructive  Insects. 

Samuels  tells  us  that  Frederick  the  Great,  fond  of  cherries, 
ordered  the  destruction  of  sparrows  which  were  stealing  his 
favorite  fruit.  A  price  was  set  on  their  heads  throughout 
Prussia,  and  the  war  against  them  was  carried  on  successfully. 
At  the  end  of  two  years  there  were  no  sparrows,  but  neither 
were  there  any  cherries;  and  most  other  fruits  also  were  want- 
ing. The  trees  swarmed  with  caterpillars,  lacked  leaves,  and  so 
produced  little  fruit.  Insects  had  increased  to  an  alarming 
extent,  since  other  birds  had  been  killed  or  driven  away  by 
the  drastic  measures  employed  against  the  sparrows.  Finally 
the  King  revoked  his  decree,  but  also  felt  obliged  at  consider- 
able expense  to  import  birds  to  take  the  place  of  those  de- 
stroyed.1 

In  1798  the  forests  in  Saxony  and  Brandenburg  were  ex- 
tensively attacked  by  a  lepidopterous  insect  that  bored  into  the 
wood  and  killed  the  trees.  This  became  so  general  a  calamity 
that  expert  foresters  and  naturalists  were  sent  by  the  regency 
to  inquire  into  the  cause.  From  their  report  it  became  ap- 
parent that  the  extraordinary  increase  of  this  insect  and  the 
consequent  destruction  of  the  trees  was  due  to  the  absence  for 
years  of  several  species  of  woodpecker  and  titmouse.2 

Reaumur  asserts  that  in  1826  the  great  trees  along  that 
noble  avenue,  the  Alle  Verte,  at  Brussels,  were  nearly  deprived 
of  leaves  by  the  caterpillars  of  the  gypsy  moth.  In  the  autumn 
the  moths  swarmed  like  bees;  they  were  very  abundant  in  the 
park,  and  if  one-half  their  eggs  had  hatched  there  would  not 
have  been  a  leaf  left  in  1827.  Two  months  later,  however, 
hardly  an  egg  could  be  found.  The  extirpation  of  these  eggs 
was  attributed  to  titmouses,  creepers  and  other  small  birds  which 
abounded  in  the  park  and  were  known  to  eat  the  eggs  of  these 
insects.3 

»  Annual  Report,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1865  (1866),  pp.  116,  117. 
*  Flagg,  Wilson:   The  Utility  of  Birds,  Annual  Report,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agri- 
culture, 1861  (1862),  Abstract,  pp.  66,  67. 

«  Kirby,  William,  and  Spence,  William:  Entomology,  1846,  p.  152. 


38 

Birds  seem  to  have  been  numerous  and  unmolested  at  that 
time  in  Brussels  parks,  but  years  later,  under  a  policy  of  bird 
destruction,  insects  got  the  upper  hand. 

In  1858  Kearly  wrote  that  sparrows  and  other  birds  had 
appeared  at  the  park  in  Brussels  in  unusual  numbers.  This 
should  have  warned  the  authorities  that  insect  pests  were  be- 
coming numerous  there,  but,  instead,  the  birds  were  declared  a 
nuisance,  their  destruction  was  ordered,  and  the  order  was 
carried  out.  The  next  year  insects  swarmed  in  the  park.  The 
gypsy  moth  stripped  nearly  all  the  trees  of  their  foliage,  and 
the  last  condition  was  worse  than  the  first.1 

After  the  French  Revolution,  when  the  game  laws  were 
abolished,  people,  being  accustomed  to  regard  birds  as  the  prop- 
erty of  the  great  landowners,  began  to  destroy  birds  and  game 
without  limit.  This  slaughter  was  followed  from  time  to  time 
by  an  increase  of  pernicious  insect  pests,  and  resulted  in  great 
distress  through  crop  failure.  Investigation  by  naturalists 
proved  that  the  destruction  of  birds  was  the  indirect  cause  of 
the  failure  of  the  crops.2 

In  1861  the  French  harvests  gave  such  an  unusually  poor  re- 
turn that  a  commission  to  inquire  into  the  cause  of  the  de- 
ficiency was  appointed  at  the  instance  of  the  Minister  of  Agri- 
culture. The  commission  consulted  expert  naturalists,  St. 
Hilaire,  Provost  and  others,  and  reported  that  the  crop  de- 
ficiency was  caused  in  great  measure  by  the  ravages  of  insects 
which  it  is  the  function  of  certain  birds  to  check.  It  was  shown 
that  the  people  had  been  destroying  such  birds  and  collecting 
their  eggs  in  great  numbers,  and  it  was  recommended  that 
prompt  and  energetic  measures  should  be  taken  to  stop  the 
killing  of  birds.3 

Similar  complaints  were  heard  again  from  France  witnin  the 
last  decade.  In  1910,  according  to  Andre  Godart's  volume, 
"  Les  Jardins  Volieres,"  the  scarcity  of  birds  (due  to  insufficient 
protection)  was  so  great  as  to  have  been  deemed  responsible  for 
the  loss  of  40,000,000  francs  to  the  grape  growers  of  the 
Gironde.  Unchecked  insect  ravages  had  so  decreased  the  olive 
crop  of  southern  France  that  the  discouraged  growers  talked  of 

i  Kearly,  George:  The  Entomologists'  Weekly  Intelligencer,  1858,  Vol.  4,  p.  192. 

»  Annual  Report,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1861  (1862),  Abstract,  pp.65,  66. 

•  Report,  United  States  Commissioner  of  Patents  (Agriculture),  1861,  pp.  322,  323. 


39 

abandoning  their  industry.  M.  Godart  in  proposing  a  remedy 
even  went  so  far  as  to  advocate  the  construction  of  large  aviaries 
in  which  birds  could  be  reared  under  protection  and  released 
to  repopulate  the  deserted  woods  and  fields.1 

In  1914  a  bitter  cry  went  up  again  from  French  farmers  re- 
garding crops  destroyed  by  insects  and  lessened  yields.  The 
Societe  d'Horticulture  Pratique  du  Rhone,  by  way  of  warning 
to  the  public,  gave  statistics  of  the  enormous  number  of  birds 
that  had  been  destroyed  by  the  people,  and  recommended  strict 
law  enforcement  and  education  to  stop  bird  destruction.2 

The  unusually  severe  weather  of  February,  1917,  was  very 
destructive  to  birds  in  England.  They  were  reported  to  have 
died  by  thousands.  Many  birds  also  had  been  killed  and  the 
eggs  of  others  taken  and  used  for  food.  The  next  year  birds 
were  seen  to  be  comparatively  scarce.  Then,  apparently  in 
consequence  of  the  scarcity  of  birds,  insects  notably  increased. 
According  to  the  "London  Times"  of  October  9,  1917,  there 
was  a  plague  of  caterpillars  in  many  districts  that  had  almost 
stripped  the  trees  of  their  leaves  at  the  beginning  of  that 
summer.3 

In  1895  I  received  a  letter  from  Monsieur  J.  O.  Clercy,  then 
secretary  of  the  Society  of  Natural  Sciences,  Ekaterinburg, 
Russian  Siberia,  in  which  he  said  that  the  ravages  of  cutworms 
and  of  ten  species  of  locusts  had  contributed  (together  with  the 
dryness  of  the  season)  to  produce  a  famine  in  that  region.  He 
asserted  that  one  of  the  evident  causes  which  permitted  such  a 
numerous  propagation  of  insect  pests  was  the  almost  complete 
annihilation  of  birds,  most  of  which  had  been  killed  and  sent 
abroad  by  wagonloads  for  ladies'  hats.4  The  cause  of  the  in- 
fliction was  so  evident  that  a  law  for  the  protection  of  birds 
was  enacted,  thus  "locking  the  stable  door  after  the  horse  had 
been  stolen." 

Professor  Samuel  Aughey  of  Nebraska  gathered  statistics  in 
regard  to  the  killing  of  bobwhites  and  prairie  chickens  for  the 
market  between  1864  and  1877,  and  also  made  a  study  of  the 

1  Oldys,  Henry:  Current  Items  of  Interest,  Audubon  Society  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
No.  33,  June  23,  1917. 

»  Sainsbury,  Edwin  F.:  Our  Dumb  Animals,  June,  1914,  p.  10. 

»  Oldys,  Henry:  Current  Items  of  Interest,  Audubon  Society  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
No.  37,  June  29,  1918. 

«  Forbuah,  E.  H.,  and  Fernald,  C.  H.:  The  Gypsy  Moth,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agri- 
culture, 1896,  pp.  205,  206. 


40 

poisoning  of  other  birds  which  were  destroyed  in  great  numbers 
because  they  attacked  the  crops.  The  poisoning  of  these  birds, 
he  believed,  permitted  a  great  increase  of  destructive  insects, 
particularly  locusts.  A  farmer  from  Wisconsin  informed  me 
that  after  the  blackbirds  in  his  vicinity  had  been  killed  off  by 
poison,  white  grubs  increased  in  number  and  destroyed  the 
grass  roots  so  that  he  personally  lost  $400  in  one  year  from  this 
cause. 

About  twelve  years  ago  Mr.  Gardiner  Hammond,  who  then 
owned  a  large  sheep  farm  on  the  Island  of  Martha's  Vineyard, 
informed  me  that  the  crows  were  killing  his  young  lambs,  and 
that  he  had  instituted  a  campaign  against  crows  by  offering 
50  cents  each  for  their  heads.  He  said  that  this  campaign  had 
been  so  successful  that  the  payment  of  the  bounty  almost 
bankrupted  him  at  the  time.  The  crows  had  nearly  all  dis- 
appeared from  his  immediate  vicinity.  A  few  years  later  he  in- 
quired if  I  could  tell  him  what  was  the  matter  with  the  grass 
in  his  pastures.  The  roots  had  been  cut  off  and  the  upper  part 
of  the  turf  had  been  separated  from  the  lower  part.  The  grass 
in  great  patches  was  dead  and  could  be  rolled  up  from  the  turf 
like  a  carpet.  I  reminded  him  that  I  had  advised  against  the 
crow  campaign,  and  he  was  now  seeing  the  result  of  shooting 
too  many  crows.  In  all  probability,  only  a  few  crows  had  been 
killing  his  lambs,  and  if  he  had  set  a  hunter  to  watch  and  shoot 
the  actual  culprits  he  would  have  saved  his  lambs  and  also  his 
pastures.  The  cause  of  the  destruction  of  the  grass  was  an 
extreme  multiplication  of  the  larvae  of  the  May  beetle  which  cut 
off  the  roots.  Crows  are  very  destructive  to  these  beetles,  and 
when  their  repressive  force  was  removed,  the  beetles  multiplied 
exceedingly  and  destroyed  the  grass  roots. 

A  similar  but  much  more  impressive  account  of  the  devasta- 
tion of  grasslands  by  grubs  following  the  almost  complete  de- 
struction of  birds  comes  from  Australia. 

Mr.  C.  W.  Beebe,  curator  of  birds  at  the  New  York  Zoo- 
logical Park,  received  a  letter  from  Sydney,  New  South  Wales, 
dated  September  12,  1908,  in  which  the  writer,  Mr.  Richard 
Wralter  Tomalin,  says:  — 

In  the  sub-districts  of  Robertson  and  Kangaloon,  in  the  Illawarra  dis- 
trict of  New  South  Wales,  what  ten  years  ago  was  a  waving  mass  of  Eng- 


41 

lish  cocksfoot  and  ryegrass,  which  had  been  put  in  gradually  as  the  dense 
vine  scrub  was  felled  and  burnt  off,  is  now  a  barren  desert,  and  nine  fami- 
lies out  of  every  ten  which  were  renting  properties  have  been  compelled  to 
leave  the  district  and  take  up  other  lands.  This  is  through  the  grubs 
having  eaten  the  grass  out  by  the  roots.  Plowing  proved  to  be  useless,  as 
the  grubs  ate  out  the  grass  just  the  same.  While  there  recently  I  was  in- 
formed that  it  took  three  years  from  the  time  the  grubs  were  first  seen 
until  to-day  to  accomplish  this  complete  devastation;  in  other  words, 
three  years  ago  the  grubs  began  work  hi  that  beautiful  country  of  green 
mountains  and  running  streams. 

The  birds  had  all  been  ruthlessly  shot  and  destroyed  in  that  district,  and 
I  was  amazed  at  the  absence  of  bird  life.  The  two  sub-districts  I  have 
mentioned  have  an  area  of  about  30  square  miles,  and  form  a  tableland 
about  1200  feet  above  sea  level.  * 

In  the  summer  of  1914  a  severe  outbreak  of  the  army  worm 
(Leucania  unipuncta)  occurred  in  southeastern  Massachusetts. 
On  August  1,  accompanied  by  Mr.  Walt  McMahon,  I  went  to 
Martha's  Vineyard  and  visited  a  farm  at  North  Tisbury.  Army 
worms  were  present  there  in  enormous  numbers.  Their  season 
appeared  to  be  about  over  and  their  destructiveness  seemed  to 
have  just  passed  its  height.  On  fields  where  the  corn  had  stood 
more  than  waist  high  the  crop  had  been  eaten  down  to  the 
ground,  leaving  no  visible  evidence  that  corn  had  grown  there. 
In  other  fields  there  still  was  a  little  corn  left  standing.  Nearly 
all  the  turf  in  the  grass  fields  appeared  dead  and  brown.  Here 
trenches  had  been  plowed  about  the  fields  to  protect  them. 
Large  quantities  of  poisoned  bran  had  been  scattered  and  had 
destroyed  some  of  the  worms,  as  we  saw  the  remains  of  it  and 
many  dead  caterpillars.  It  was  reported  that  these  caterpillars 
had  lain  over  a  foot  deep  in  some  of  the  trenches,  but  these 
had  been  plowed  under.  Here  we  saw  almost  no  birds;  the 
only  small  bird  noted  was  one  red-winged  blackbird.  A  farmer 
on  the  ground  stated  his  belief  that  the  poisoned  bran  had 
killed  the  birds,  or  that  they  had  been  killed  by  eating  poisoned 
army  worms.  It  was  said  that  some  turkeys  also  had  been 
poisoned  on  another  farm. 

*  Oldys,  Henry:   Current  Items  of  Interest,  Audubon  Society  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
No.  3,  April  15,  1909. 


42 


Increase  of  Birds  followed  by  Decrease  of  Destructive  Insects. 

As  an  extreme  contrast  to  the  condition  of  the  farm  men- 
tioned above,  let  me  present  another  experience.  Later  in  the 
day  we  went  to  the  State  bird  reservation  on  the  island.  Here 
the  army  worms  appeared  to  have  been  nearly  as  numerous  as 
at  the  other  place,  but  no  poison  had  been  used  because  of  the 
danger  of  poisoning  the  heath  hen,  a  bird  now  nearly  extinct, 
for  the  preservation  of  which  this  reservation  was  established. 
The  condition  of  the  fields  here  was  much  better  than  at  North 
Tisbury.  There  was  no  noticeable  injury  in  the  cornfields.  The 
grass  had  been  eaten  somewhat  in  some  of  the  fields,  but 
apparently  there  was  no  serious  damage.  Particular  efforts  had 
been  made  here  for  years  to  attract  and  protect  birds,  and  these 
efforts  had  been  successful.  Many  nesting  boxes  had  been  put 
up  on  fences,  posts,  poles,  etc.,  and  most  of  them  were  occupied. 
Birds  were  seen  everywhere.  Bushes  at  the  borders  of  the 
fields  were  more  or  less  whitened  by  their  excrement,  which 
showed  that  they  had  been  living  on  animal  food.  With  our 
glasses  many  birds  could  be  seen  feeding  on  the  army  worms. 
Many  heath  hens  were  noted  in  the  fields,  apparently  picking 
up  these  insects.  Among  the  birds  seen  to  feed  on  these  worms 
were  the  chipping  sparrow,  English  sparrow,  field  sparrow,  song 
sparrow,  robin,  flicker,  bluebird  and  red-winged  blackbird. 
Apparently,  also,  the  brown  thrasher,  towhee  and  kingbird  were 
eating  them,  and  people  reported  that  cowbirds,  catbirds, 
yellow-legs  and  upland  plovers  also  had  attacked  them.  Robins 
appeared  to  be  among  the  most  effective  of  all,  and  English 
sparrows  were  quite  numerous  in  the  fields.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  result  of  the  insect  invasion  at  North  Tisbur^y  and 
that  at  the  heath  hen  reservation  seemed  to  have  been  attribu- 
table mainly  to  the  scarcity  of  birds  at  the  former  locality  and 
their  abundance  at  the  latter. 

On  my  own  place  at  Wareham,  in  this  particular  year,  much 
pains  had  been  taken  to  attract  birds,  and  on  neighboring 
farms  to  the  eastward  nesting  boxes  had  been  put  up  so  that 
altogether  more  than  75  had  been  erected.  Most  of  these 
wrere  occupied  by  birds  early  in  the  season.  Here,  again,  we 
had  ocular  evidence  of  the  utility  of  birds.  While  photo- 


DESTRUCTION  BY  THE  ARMY  WORMS. 

Cornfield  on  Marthas  Vineyard  where  a  quantity  of  poisoned  bran  was  used  and  birds 

disappeared. 


BIRDS  SAVED  THIS  CORNFIELD  FROM  THE  ARMY  WORMS. 

Here  no  poisoned  bran  was  used,  but  birds  had  been  attracted,  were  present  in  large  num- 
bers, and  destroyed  the  caterpillars. 


43 

graphing  birds  we  noted  that  they  were  bringing  army  worms 
to  their  young,  and  neither  my  crops  nor  my  neighbor's,  on 
whose  premises  these  nesting  boxes  had  been  put  up,  suf- 
fered at  all  by  the  army  worms.  Twenty  rods  west  of  my 
farm  some  injury  was  done  to  the  grass  by  the  worms,  and 
from  there  over  and  through  the  town  of  Wareham,  where  no 
attempt  had  been  made  to  increase  the  birds,  much  grass  was 
eaten  and  some  corn.  Where  birds  are  sufficiently  abundant, 
they  destroy  the  first  generation  of  the  army  worm,  and  so 
prevent  excessive  increase.  Usually,  when  the  first  brood  is 
unchecked,  it  is  the  second  generation  of  the  year  that  becomes 
numerous  enough  to  devastate  the  crops.1 

In  1894  my  assistant,  Mr.  Charles  E.  Bailey,  experimented 
in  an  old  orchard  on  my  ground  at  Medford,  Massachusetts,  to 
determine  whether  any  effect  on  orchard  pests  could  be  pro- 
duced by  attracting  birds.  The  trees  were  not  sprayed  nor 
protected  from  insects  in  any  way,  but  food  was  provided  for 
birds  in  winter,  nesting  boxes  were  erected  in  spring,  and  an 
attempt  was  made  to  protect  birds  from  their  enemies.  By 
these  means  the  number  of  birds  feeding  about  the  place  was 
much  increased.  It  happened  that  orchard  insects  were  very 
plentiful  and  destructive  that  year,  but  the  birds  in  our  orchard 
destroyed  many  thousands  of  eggs  and  females  of  the  fall  and 
spring  cankerworm  moths,  eggs  of  the  tent  moth,  caterpillars 

of  the  gypsy  moth,  case- 
bearers,  tineids,  etc.  By 
examining  the  contents  of 
the  stomachs  of  chicka- 
dees, Mr.  Bailey  reached 
the  conclusion  that  a 
single  chickadee  in  twenty- 
five  days  would  destroy 
138,750  eggs  of  the  can- 

Chkar°yer  °f  °rchard     kerworm  moth.    The  sig- 

nificant    outcome   of   our 

experiment  was,  that  while  all  the  other  orchards  in  the  neigh- 
borhood except  the  one  nearest  ours  were  stripped  of  their 

i  Seventh  Annual  Report  of  the  State  Ornithologist,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture, 
1914,  pp.  20-22. 


44 

foliage  and  bore  no  fruit  that  year,  our  orchard  remained  in  full 
foliage  and  produced  a  full  crop  of  fruit.1 

Mr.  B.  A.  Arnold  who,  in  the  summer  of  1913,  lived  at 
Northeast  Harbor,  Maine,  wrote  me  that  a  spruce  moth 
(probably  one  of  the  Tortricids)  had  become  quite  abundant  in 
that  vicinity,  so  much  so  that  people  were  beginning  to  fear 
the  destruction  of  the  spruce  woods.  He  had  noticed  that  the 
red  squirrels  which  were  numerous  in  the  woods  were  protect- 
ing the  moths  by  destroying  the  eggs  and  young  of  warblers 
and  other  small  birds;  therefore  he  had  killed  off  the  squirrels 
on  the  peninsula  on  which  his  cottage  was  situated  and  which 
was  connected  to  the  mainland  only  by  a  narrow  neck  of  land. 
Many  young  warblers  were  reared  on  his  place,  and  the  birds 


Egg  clusters  of  the  cankerworm  moth,  eaten  by  chickadees. 

could  be  seen  at  all  hours  of  the  day  hunting  their  food  on  the 
spruces.  In  a  short  time  the  trees  were  cleared  of  both  worms 
and  moths  and  the  pest  was  stayed,  while  on  the  mainland 
the  defoliation  of  the  trees  still  continued.2 

In  1916  and  1917  the  groves  in  the  parks  at  Minot,  North 
Dakota,  were  attacked  by  thousands  of  measuring  worms.  In 
1918  Mr.  Will  O.  Doolittle  took  measures  to  attract  wild  birds, 
which  came  in  numbers  and  soon  freed  the  trees  of  the  pests. 
Chickadees,  nuthatches  and  woodpeckers,  attracted  to  the 
parks,  became  very  tame  by  constant  feeding  and  atterition, 
and  cedar  waxwings,  rose-breasted  grosbeaks  and  kingbirds 
showed  particular  efficiency  in  ridding  the  trees  of  their  insect 
enemies.3 

The  late  Rev.  William  R.  Lord  reported  on  December  1, 
1913,  that  the  town  authorities  of  Dover,  Massachusetts,  had 
been  cutting  down  wild  cherry  trees  because  those  trees  harbored 

1  Annual  Report,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1895  (1896),  pp.  347-362. 

2  Sixth  Annual  Report  of  the  State  Ornithologist,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture, 
1913,  p.  27. 

3  Oldys,  Henry:    Current  Items  of  Interest,  Audubon  Society  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
No.  38,  July  1,  1918. 


45 

tent  caterpillars.    Mr.  Lord  refused  permission  to  have  the  trees 

on  his  estate  cut,  as  he  had  been  attracting  birds  about  the 

place  and  desired  to  raise  wild  cherries  as  food  for  them.    The 

caterpillars  did  very  little  harm  on 

his  estate.    In  the  fall  of  1913  many 

tent  caterpillar  moths  had  laid  their     Eggs  of  the  tent^~^  moth,  an 

eggS    On    his    trees,    but    m    late    No-  enemy  of  the  apple  tree,  eaten  by 

,  ,      ,  chickadees  and  blue  jays. 

vember  when  he  examined  the  trees 

he  found  that  the  birds,  mainly  chickadees,  had  removed  nearly 

all  the  egg  clusters. 

Baron  Hans  von  Berlepsch  experimented  for  many  years  with 
methods  for  attracting  birds  at  his  estate  in  Thuringia  by 
means  of  nesting  boxes,  food  plants  and  bird  food.  He  thus 
increased  enormously  the  number  of  birds  on  his  estate.  The 
practical  value  derived  from  the  insect-eating  habits  of  his 
birds  was  shown  in  the  spring  of  1905. 

The  Hainich  wood,  south  of  Eisenach,  which  covers  several 
square  miles,  was  entirely  defoliated  by  the  caterpillars  of  a 
little  moth  (Tortrix  mridana),  but  the  woods  on  the  near-by 
estate  of  Baron  Von  Berlepsch  were  left  entirely  untouched  by 
the  caterpillars,  so  that  they  actually  stood  out  from  the  sur- 
rounding barren  leafless  woods  like  a  green  oasis  in  the  country- 
side. At  a  distance  of  a  little  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  his  estate  the  first  traces  of  the  plague  were  apparent,  and 
half  a  mile  away  it  was  in  full  force.  This  plainly  showed  how 
far  the  birds  from  his  estate  had  traveled  to  find  food.1 

Similar  observations  were  made  during  a  plague  of  the  same 
caterpillar  in  1906  in  the  Crown  Wood  Harras,  in  the  Grand 
Duchy  of  Hesse,  where  the  protection  of  birds  had  been  carried 
on  energetically  for  a  few  years;  also  the  abundant  use  of 
nesting  boxes  in  the  Prussian  woods  at  this  same  period  brought 
about  a  marked  decrease  in  at  least  two  species  of  destructive 
insects. 

BIRDS  AS  WEED  DESTROYERS. 

Fighting  weeds  occupies  about  30  per  cent  of  all  the  time  a 
farmer  spends  in  cultivating  his  crops,  according  to  experts  of 
the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture.  Birds  assist  the 

1  Hiesemann,    M.:   How  to    Attract    and    Protect   Wild    Birds,   London,    1912,  pp.  50,  51; 
translation  by  Emma  S.  Buchheim. 


46 

farmer  by  destroying  weeds.  Sparrows,  doves,  bobwhites  and 
many  other  birds  feed  voraciously  on  the  seeds  of  weeds  during 
autumn  and  winter.  Sparrows  are  pre-eminently  seed  eaters, 
and  destroy  vast  quantities  of  weed  seeds.  Dr.  Judd  made  a 
thorough  study  of  the  subject.  He  found  that  a  single  weed 
sometimes  produced  many  thousands  of  seeds,  but  he  also  esti- 
mated that  the  birds  on  one  acre  of  a  Maryland  farm  ate  46,000 
weed  seeds  for  their  breakfast.  Professor  F.  E.  L.  Beal  esti- 
mated that  the  tree  sparrows  of  Iowa  destroy  about  875  tons 
of  weed  seed  annually  during  their  winter  sojourn.1  Instances 
have  been  known  where  sparrows  have  eaten  practically  all  the 
weed  seeds  in  certain  small  tracts,  but  these  are  rare.  Un- 
doubtedly the  destruction  of  weed  seeds  by  birds  in  grass  fields 
or  grain  fields  is  a  benefit.  In  gardens  or  on  truck  farms  weeds 
are  a  blessing  in  disguise,  as  they  stimulate  hoeing  and  cultiva- 
tion, and  thus  bring  about  a  surface  tilth  which  often  is  essential 
to  the  conservation  of  moisture.  Therefore  the  utility  of  weed- 
eating  birds  in  the  garden  is  questionable. 

BIRDS  AS  DISTRIBUTORS  AND  PLANTERS  OF  SEEDS. 

Recent  investigations  have  shown  that  in  some  cases  a  few 
weed  seeds  pass  through  the  alimentary  system  of  some  birds 
uninjured.  In  such  cases  the  bird  may  become  a  distributor 
and  planter  of  weeds  in  a  small  way,  and  may  thereby  offset 
the  good  done  by  eating  seeds,  but  in  nature  seed  distribution 
is  necessary  to  keep  the  soil  covered  with  vegetation  and  pre- 
vent erosion. 

Waterfowl  and  wading  birds  sometimes  carry  seeds  of  water 
plants  from  place  to  place  in  bits  of  mud  attached  to  their  feet. 
Jays,  crows,  magpies  and  some  other  species  seem  to  ha^e  a 
mania  for  distributing  and  hiding  things.  No  doubt  many 
seeds,  especially  chestnuts  and  acorns,  are  hidden  away  by 
birds  and  never  found  by  them  again.  Sudden  fright  often 
causes  a  bird  to  drop  food  that  it  is  carrying.  All  fruit-eating 
birds  scatter  abroad  the  seeds  of  fruit  on  which  they  feed.  Such 
seeds  are  either  passed  uninjured  through  the  alimentary  canal, 
or  are  ejected  from  the  mouth  after  the  pulp  has  been  digested. 
Birds  assimilate  fruit  pulp  very  rapidly.  Dr.  E.  A.  Mearns 

i  Judd,  S.  D.:   Bulletin  No.  15,  Division  of  Biological  Survey,  United  States  Department 
of  Agriculture,  1901,  p.  27. 


47 

found  that  more  than  900  juniper  berries  passed  through  the 
digestive  tract  of  a  Bohemian  waxwing  in  six  hours.  Mr.  Frank 
J.  Phillips  gives  a  list  of  26  birds  that  eat  juniper  berries.1 
Probably  others  also  eat  them  and  assist  in  distributing  the 
seeds.  The  seeds  and  pits  of  the  larger  fruits  eaten  by  birds 
are  mostly  regurgitated  and  they  are  scattered  far  and  wide. 
Birds  alone  would  soon  replant  all  the  cleared  lands  were  it 
not  for  the  mowing  machine,  the  reaper  and  the  tools  of  culti- 
vation. The  tangles  of  trees,  shrubs  and  vines  that  so  often 
spring  up  along  the  fences  and  roadsides  are  due  largely  to 
planting  by  birds. 

BIRDS  AS  SCAVENGERS. 

Birds  perform  a  valuable  service  as  scavengers.  The  utility 
of  vultures,  ravens  and  crows,  in  quickly  devouring  garbage 
and  the  decaying  carcasses  of  animals,  is  well  known,  and  this 
service  is  particularly  valuable  in  hot  countries.  Gulls  and 
some  other  sea  birds  are  particularly  useful  in  cleaning  up  the 
garbage  of  large  cities  when  it  is  dumped  into  the  sea.  Every- 
thing edible  that  floats  is  destroyed  by  the  gathering  thousands 
of  these  birds,  and  is  thus  prevented  from  drifting  back  upon 
the  beaches.  Masses  of  dead  and  decaying  fish  or  shellfish 
thrown  upon  the  shore  by  the  waves  are  quickly  disposed  of  by 
gulls.  Complaints  have  been  made  that  they  have  even  stolen 
dead  fish  used  to  manure  the  fields.  Only  recently  on  Long 
Island  it  is  said  that  a  farmer  bought  and  paid  for  tons  of  star- 
fish that  he  intended  to  use  as  fertilizer,  but  when  he  came 
with  his  teams  to  haul  them  away  the  heap  had  disappeared. 
Eyewitnesses  said  that  the  gulls  had  stolen  them  all.  This  story 
illustrates  how  quickly  the  assembling  gulls  remove  a  mal- 
odorous nuisance,  and  how  vigilant  they  are  in  this  service. 

UTILITY  OF  BIRDS  OF  PREY. 

Birds  of  prey  perform  a  part  in  the  economy  of  nature  by 
limiting  the  increase  of  many  of  the  larger  insects,  besides  some 
of  the  smaller  birds  and  mammals,  which  if  unchecked  might 
cause  great  disturbances  in  the  balance  of  Nature.  These  rap- 
torial species  are  checks  upon  the  increase  of  other  natural 

1  The  Dissemination  of  Junipers  by  Birds,  reprint  from  Forestry  Quarterly,  Vol.  VIII,  No.  1, 
pp.  5, 15, 16. 


48 

enemies  of  birds.    They  are  active,  also,  in  limiting  to  harmless 
bounds  the  many  creatures  on  which  they  prey. 

Owls  destroy  great  numbers  of  nocturnal  creatures,  such  as 
rats,  mice  and  the  larger  night-flying  insects.  Both  hawks  and 
owls  render  valuable  service  to  the  farmer  by  holding  in  check 
the  increase  of  small  mammals,  such  as  squirrels,  gophers, 
lemmings,  wood  mice  and  field  mice.  These  little  animals  are 
not  very  destructive  when  in  normal  numbers,  but  field  mice, 
for  example,  are  very  prolific,  each  pair  producing  a  large 
number  of  young  each  year.  They  breed  so  rapidly  that  unless 
held  in  check  they  soon  overrun  the  country,  destroying  grass, 
grain,  trees  and  practically  every  green  thing,  also  the  eggs  of 
game  birds  and  other  ground-breeding  birds. 

The  majority  of  the  hawks  and  owls  spend  most  of  their 
feeding  hours  in  hunting  for  and  destroying  such  small  mammals, 
and  their  capacity  for  such  food  is  enormous.  Lord  Lilford  re- 
ports that  he  has  seen  a  pair  of  barn  owls  bring  food  to  their 
young  seventeen  times  within  half  an  hour,  and  that  he  fed 
nine  mice  in  quick  succession  to  a  young  barn  owl  two-thirds 
grown.1  As  the  owls  throw  up  the  indigestible  parts  of  their 
food,  pellets  composed  mainly  of  fur  and  bones  may  be  found 
in  the  vicinity  of  their  nests  or  roosts.  In  1890  a  pair  of  barn 
owls  occupied  a  space  in  the  upper  part  of  a  tower  in  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  at  Washington,  District  of  Columbia. 
An  examination  of  200  of  the  pellets  found  there  gave  a  total  of 
454  skulls.  There  were  remains  of  225  field  mice,  2  pine  mice, 
179  house  mice,  20  rats,  6  jumping  mice,  20  shrews,  1  mole  and 
1  vesper  sparrow.2  Mr.  O.  E.  Niles  asserts  that  he  found  113 
dead  rats  on  the  ground  below  a  great  horned  owl's  nest,  and 
several  more  in  the  nest.  Their  skulls  had  been  opened  and 
their  brains  removed.2 

The  young  of  hawks  and  owls  remain  a  long  time  in  the  nest 
and  require  a  great  quantity  of  food.  Dr.  A.  K.  Fisher  of  the 
Biological  Survey  examined  the  stomach  contents  of  690  hawks 
and  owls  from  various  parts  of  the  United  States,  and  con- 
cluded, as  a  result  of  these  examinations  and  correspondence 
with  many  observers,  that  most  hawks  are  more  or  less  bene- 
ficial to  agriculture,  and  most  owls  are  exceedingly  useful  birds. 

i  Tegetmeier,  W.  B.:  The  Field  [London],  Vol.  LXXV,  No.  1956,  June  21,  1890,  p.  906. 
*  Fisher,  A.  K.:   Hawks  and  Owls  of  the  United  States,  Bulletin  No.  3,  Division  of  Orni- 
thology and  Mammalogy,  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture,  1893,  pp.  136, 176. 


REGURGITATED  OWL  PELLETS. 

These  pellets,  composed  of  bones  and  fur,  also  feathers  of  a  robin,  were  ejected  near  author's 
house  by  screech  owls.    (From  Useful  Birds  and  Their  Protection.) 


THE  SAME  PELLETS  DISSFCTED. 

The  fur  is  shown  in  a  pile  on  the  right,  and  on  the  left  portions  of  skulls  and  other  bones  of 
mice,  with  a  few  of  shrews  and  moles,  eaten  by  the  owls.  (From  Useful  Birds  and  Their 
Protection.) 


49 

In  many  parts  of  the  world  irruptions  of  lemmings,  gophers 
or  field  mice  have  occurred,  and  in  such  cases  rapacious  birds 
have  gathered,  forming  more  or  less  effectual  checks  on  these 
outbreaks.  Such  occurrences  are  on  record  in  England  and 
Scotland.  The  following  quaint  account,  taken  from  Stowe's 
"Chronicle"  in  1581,  tells  of  an  outbreak  in  England:  — 

About  Hallowtide  last  past  [1580]  in  the  marshes  of  Danessey  Hundred, 
in  a  place  called  South  Minster,  in  the  county  of  Essex,  there  sodainlie 
appeared  an  infinite  number  of  mice,  which  overwhelming  the  whole  earth 
in  the  said  marshes,  did  sheare  and  gnaw  the  grass  by  the  roots,  spoyling 
and  tainting  the  same  with  their  venimous  teeth  in  such  sort  that  the  cat- 
tell  which  grazed  thereon  were  smitten  with  a  murraine  and  died  thereof; 
which  vermine  by  policie  of  man  could  not  be  destroyed,  till  at  the  last  it 
came  to  pass  that  there  flocked  together  such  a  number  of  owles,  as  all  the 
shire  was  able  to  yield,  whereby  the  marsh-holders  were  shortly  delivered 
from  the  vexation  of  the  said  mice.  The  Like  of  this  was  also  in  Kent. 1 

Similar  "sore  plagues"  were  experienced  in  Essex  again  in 
1648,  in  Norfolk  in  1745,  and  in  Gloucestershire  and  Hampshire 
in  18,13-14.2 

The  following  extract  regards  Norfolk:  — 

Once  in  about  six  or  seven  years,  Hilgay,  about  one  thousand  acres,  is 
infested  with  an  incredible  number  of  field  mice,  which,  like  locusts,  would 
devour  the  corn  of  every  kind.  Invariably  there  follows  a  prodigious 
flight  of  Norway  owls,  and  they  tarry  until  the  mice  are  entirely  destroyed 
by  them.3 

Notwithstanding  that  both  the  cause  and  remedy  of  these 
frequent  outbreaks  of  field  mice  were  apparent,  the  destruction 
of  their  natural  enemies  by  man  still  went  on.  In  1875-76  a 
noted  outbreak  of  mice  occurred  in  the  borders  of  Roxburgh- 
shire, Selkirkshire  and  Dumfriesshire,  also  in  parts  of  Yorkshire. 
The  abundance  of  mice  attracted  hawks,  owls  and  foxes  in  un- 
usual numbers.  In  1892  an  alarming  increase  of  these  field  mice 
again  occurred  in  the  south  of  Scotland.  In  Roxburgh  and 
Dumfries  alone  the  plague  was  estimated  to  have  extended  over 
an  area  of  80,000  to  90,000  acres.4  A  preponderance  of  opinion 
among  the  farmers  was  reported,  tracing  the  cause  of  this  out- 
break to  the  scarcity  of  owls,  hawks,  weasels  and  other  so- 

1  See  also  an  account  of  the  same  occurrence  by  Childrey  in  Brittannia  Baconica,  1660,  p.  14. 
*  Journal,  Royal  Agricultural  Society,  1892,  p.  223,  and  papers  there  cited. 
»  Gentleman's  Magazine,  1754,  Vol.  XXIV,  p.  215. 

«  Report  to  the  Board  of  Agriculture  on  the  Plague  of  Field  Mice  or  Voles  in  the  South  of  Scot, 
land,  1892. 


50 

called  vermin.  All  these  animals,  and  crows,  also,  are  to  be 
ranked  among  the  natural  enemies  of  mice.  The  statement 
made  by  Childrey  regarding  the  assemblage  of  owls  when  the 
field  mice  swarmed  in  Essex  in  1580  received  confirmation 
during  1892.  Local  observers  reported  that,  after  the  great 
increase  of  voles  occurred,  the  short-eared  owl  (Asio  flammeus) 
became  much  more  numerous  on  the  hill  farms,  and  that  many 
pairs,  contrary  to  precedent,  remained  to  breed. 

Dr.  W.  B.  Wall  expresses  the  opinion,  from  his  experience 
with  the  pests,  that  their  chief  enemies  are  the  owl  and  the 
kestrel  (a  hawk),  which  do  more  to  reduce  their  ranks  than  all 
the  traps  of  the  farmers  and  the  "microbes  of  the  scientists" 
combined.  Both  farmers  and  gamekeepers  in  England  and 
Scotland  are  inclined  to  regard  these  birds  as  vermin,  to  be 
shot  at  sight.1 

Any  one  who  doubts  that  under  normal  conditions  of  Nature 
the  natural  enemies  of  field  mice  can  check  effectively  any 
irruption  of  these  creatures  should  read  a  chapter  in  one  of 
Hudson's  books,  entitled  "A  Wave  of  Life."  He  writes  of  a 
time  when  the  pampas  of  the  La  Plata  were  mainly  a  wilderness 
inhabited  only  by  scattered  bands  of  Indians.  He  says  that 
in  the  summers  of  1872  and  1873  (which  would  correspond 
chronologically  with  the  winter  of  those  years  in  North  America), 
an  unusually  fertile  and  prolific  season  there,  mice  became  so 
abundant  that  domestic  fowls  pursued  them  incessantly.  Foxes, 
weasels,  cats  and  even  armadillos  fared  sumptuously.  Storks 
and  owls  greatly  increased  in  numbers.  "On  the  pampas,"  he 
says,  "whenever  mice,  frogs  or  crickets  become  excessively 
abundant  we  confidently  look  for  the  appearance  of  multitudes 
of  the  birds  that  prey  on  them."  Years  may  have  passed  when 
hardly  an  individual  of  any  of  these  birds  was  to  be  seen",  but 
now  the  stork,  short-eared  owl,  black-backed  gull,  hooded  gull 
and  other  species  appear,  a  few  at  first,  like  harbingers,  and 
before  long  they  arrive  in  myriads.  Short-eared  owls  remained 
in  numbers,  and,  supplied  with  abundant  food,  began  to  breed 
in  winter.  "As  the  mice  increased,"  he  says,  "so  did  their 
enemies."  Insectivorous  and  other  species  acquired  the  habits 
of  owls  and  weasels,  preying  exclusively  on  mice,  while  to  the 

i  Useful  Birds  and  their  Protection,  1913,  pp.  76-78. 


51 


WHITE-FOOTED  OB  DEER  MOUSE. 
A  destructive  wood  mouse,  the  increase  of  which  is  controlled  largely  by  hawks  and  owls. 


FIELD  OR  MEADOW  MOUSE. 
A  prolific  and  devastating  mouse,  held  in  check  by  hawks  and  owls. 


52 

army  of  resident  birds  were  shortly  added  multitudes  of  wander- 
ing ones  from  distant  regions.  In  the  autumn  the  earth  so 
teemed  with  mice  that  one  could  scarcely  walk  without  treading 
on  them;  but  so  rapidly  were  they  devoured  by  the  trained 
army  of  their  enemies  that  in  spring  it  was  hard  to  find  a  single 
survivor,  even  in  the  barns  and  houses.  The  storks  all  left  in 
winter,  and  by  August,  1873,  even  the  short-eared  owls  had 
vanished.  Mice  were  now  so  scarce  that  the  little  resident 
burrowing  owls  were  almost  famished,  and  hung  about  the 
houses  of  the  settlers  to  pick  up  scraps  of  garbage  that  were 
thrown  to  them.1 

In  many  parts  of  the  western  United  States  the  destruction 
of  the  natural  enemies  of  rodents  has  now  gone  so  far  that  these 
animals  have  increased  greatly  in  numbers.  Whole  communities 
find  themselves  compelled  to  turn  out  to  hunt  "jack  rabbits." 
The  Biological  Survey  has  been  obliged  to  organize  the  farmers 
over  large  areas  in  the  work  of  poisoning  mice,  gophers  and 
ground  squirrels.  Bounties  have  been  offered  on  the  heads  of 
these  creatures,  and  large  sums  have  been  paid  out  for  their 
destruction.  In  one  case  in  Montana  in  1887  a  special  session 
of  the  Legislature  was  called  to  repeal  the  bounty  act  and  save 
the  State  from  bankruptcy.  In  the  Humboldt  valley  in  Ne- 
vada, in  1907-08,  the  loss  to  crops  by  an  irruption  of  field 
mice  was  estimated  conservatively  at  $250,000. 2  It  was  esti- 
mated that  2,000  raptorial  birds  and  1,000  predatory  mammals 
gathered  and  assisted  to  quell  this  outbreak,  and  that  they  de- 
stroyed 1,350,000  mice  each  month,  yet  there  were  not  enough 
of  these  carnivorous  creatures  left  in  that  country  to  check  the 
pest  materially,  and  the  farmers  were  compelled  to  resort  to 
poisons.2 

In  New  England  our  common  hares,  miscalled  rabbits,  are 
kept  in  check  by  the  hunter.  But  field  mice,  not  subject  to  this 
check,  destroyed  thousands  of  young  fruit  trees  during  the 
winters  of  1903-04  and  1904-05. 

»  Hudson,  W.  H.:  The  Naturalist  in  La  Plata,  1895,  pp.  58-63. 

2  Piper,  Stanley  E.:    Mouse  Plagues  and  their  Control  and  Prevention,  Yearbook,  United 
States  Department  of  Agriculture,  1908,  pp.  302,  304. 


53 


SERVICES  RENDERED  BY  SHORE  BIRDS,  MARSH  BIRDS,  WATER- 
FOWL AND  SEA  BIRDS. 

The  usefulness  of  snipes,  woodcocks,  sandpipers,  plovers, 
curlews  and  other  shore  birds  and  marsh  birds  as  insect  de- 
stroyers is  not  generally  appreciated.  Many  species  feed 
voraciously  on  marsh  and  field  insects,  such  as  cutworms,  grass- 


Killdeer  plover,  one  of  the  most  useful  birds  of  the  field. 

hoppers,  locusts,  wireworms  and  grubs.  In  their  spring  migra- 
tions through  the  Mississippi  valley  region,  shore  birds  destroy 
countless  hordes  of  grass-eating  and  crop-destroying  insects. 
Species  that  breed  inland  in  agricultural  regions,  such  as  the 
killdeer,  mountain  plover,  upland  plover,  spotted  sandpiper  and 
long-billed  curlew,  are  so  useful  throughout  the  year  that  they 
should  be  protected  by  law  perpetually  for  the  benefit  of  agri- 
culture. The  killdeer  and  the  upland  plover  also  befriend  cattle 
by  devouring  the  North  American  fever  tick. 

Professor  Aughey  found  that  23  species  among  the  shore  birds 
and  10  species  of  wild-fowl  were  actively  destroying  locusts  and 
other  insects  in  Nebraska,  and  Mr.  W.  L.  McAtee  finds  that 
grasshoppers  are  a  staple  food  of  many  shore  birds.1  Mr.  H.  W. 
Tinkham  of  Touisset,  Massachusetts,  watched  six  spotted  sand- 
pipers preying  on  cutworms  and  cabbage  worms.  The  diet  of 
shore  birds  includes  such  pests  as  army  worms,  cutworms,  boll 
weevils,  clover-root  curculios,  clover-leaf  weevils,  rice  weevils, 

*  McAtee,  W.  L.:    Bureau  of  Biological  Survey,  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture, 
Circular  No.  79,  1911,  p.  4. 


54 


corn  billbugs,  corn-leaf  beetles,  cucumber  beetles,  ticks,  horse- 
flies and  mosquitoes.  Nine  species  are  known  to  feed  on 
mosquito  larvae,  and  doubtless  others  do  so. 

Egrets  and  herons  eat  many  crawfish.  Crawfish  destroy 
young  fish;  they  also  burrow  into  dykes,  and  thus  become  at 
times  a  serious  menace  to  the  levees  of  the  lower  Mississippi. 
In  recent  years,  since  the  great  destruction  of  egrets  in  the 
southern  States,  immense  damage  to  crops  by  crawfish  has  been 
reported  from  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  where  over  a  wide 
stretch  of  country  "  estimated  at  not  less  than  100  square  miles, 
they  have  prevented  to  a  very  considerable  extent  the  successful 
production  of  cotton  and  corn."  l  Can  this  be  a  mere  coincidence? 

The  National  Association  of  Audubon  Societies  made  an 
examination  of  the  stomach  contents  of  young  herons  and 
egrets.  The  results,  tabulated  below,  prove  these  birds  to  be 
destroyers  not  only  of  crawfish  but  also  of  insect  pests. 

Food  of  Young  Herons. 

[Based  on  the  examination  by  O.  E.  Baynard,  Orange  Lake,  Florida,  of  50  meals  of  each  of  the 

following  species.] 


SPECIES. 

Grass- 
hoppers. 

Cutworms. 

Crawfish. 

Suckers. 

Mis- 
cellaneous 
Objects. 

Snowy  egret,        .... 

762 

91 

29 

- 

9 

Little  blue  heron, 

1,900 

149 

142 

- 

45 

Louisiana  heron, 

2,876 

17 

67 

- 

14 

Egret  

- 

- 

176 

61 

2972 

Young  herons  have  a  very  accommodating  and  hospitable 
habit  of  presenting  their  food  to  visitors  by  regurgitation  after 
they  have  eaten  it,  and  adult  birds  when  suddenly  frigntened 
or  disturbed  often  drop  food  from  their  bills.  It  is  easy,  there- 
fore, to  make  a  rather  comprehensive  survey  of  their  food  in 
the  heronry  without  actually  killing  the  birds.  In  1915  fisher- 
men on  the  Massachusetts  coast  complained  that  black-crowned 
night  herons,  which  had  increased  under  protection  for  several 
years,  were  catching  so  many  eels  that  they  were  endangering 

1  Fisher,  A.  K.:  Crawfish  as  Crop  Destroyers,  Yearbook,   United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture,  1911,  p.  322. 
*  Frogs. 


55 

the  eel-fishing  industry.  In  1916,  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr. 
William  C.  Adams,  then  chairman  of  the  Massachusetts  Com- 
missioners on  Fisheries  and  Game,  I  visited  three  large  heron- 
ries and  collected  and  examined  much  partially  digested  ma- 
terial. The  food  consisted  largely  of  fishes  not  considered  of 
much  value  for  human  consumption,  the  principal  species  being 
the  alewife.  At  a  heronry  on  Cape  Cod  most  of  the  food  con- 
sisted of  squids.  The  only  valuable  food  fishes  found  were  one 
eel  and  one  pickerel. 

Under  the  circumstances  these  herons  could  not  be  considered 
as  detrimental  to  the  fisheries  at  that  time.  Whether  or  not 
they  were  beneficial  depends  largely  on  the  food  habits  of  squids 
at  that  place  and  season.  Squids  destroy  quantities  of  her- 
ring spawn.  Probably  all  American  herons  and  bitterns  attack 
grasshoppers  and  locusts,  and  such  caterpillars  as  cutworms  and 
army  worms,  whenever  these  insects  become  numerous  in  or 
near  their  haunts.  The  larger  species  destroy  field  mice  also. 

The  brown  pelican  on  the  Florida  coast  lives  mainly  on  men- 
haden, an  inedible  fish,  and  both  the  brown  pelicans  and  white 
pelicans  on  the  western  plains  feed  more  or  less  on  grasshoppers 
and  locusts  when  these  destructive  insects  are  abundant.  The 
notion  that  fish-eating  birds  are  seriously  destructive  to  food 
fishes  arises  from  the  fact  that  birds  are  conspicuous  when 
fishing,  while  porpoises,  predatory  fishes  and  other  creatures 
that  devour  food  fishes  and  their  eggs  and  young  work  mainly 
beneath  the  surface,  out  of  sight.  Probably  most  if  not  all 
fish  prey  on  other  fish  or  their  spawn,  and  if  we  were  to  at- 
tempt to  increase  the  supply  of  valuable  fish  by  killing  off  their 
enemies,  we  should  have  to  destroy  most  of  the  denizens  of  the 
ocean. 

As  an  example  of  the  useful  habits  of  fish-eating  birds,  we 
may  note  those  of  the  fish  ducks,  the  sheldrakes  or  mergansers. 
These  birds  at  times  feed  more  or  less  upon  trout,  but  they  also 
destroy  the  enemies  of  trout.  Minnows  are  eaten  by  mergan- 
sers, and  minnows  are  said  by  good  authority  to  devour  large 
numbers  of  trout  eggs.  Trout  fry,  too,  are  destroyed  by 
mosquitoes,  which  pierce  the  brains  of  the  little  fry  when  the 
latter  come  to  the  surface  and  leave  them  floating  dead  upon 
the  current;  but  quantities  of  mosquito  larvse  are  destroyed  by 


56 

ducks  which  doubtless  thus  save  many  young  trout.  The 
influence  of  fish-eating  birds  is  exerted  to  keep  the  balance  true 
between  the  fish  and  their  enemies,  and  to  prevent  any  undue 
increase  of  either.  If  an  increase  of  minnows  or  mosquitoes 
occurs  then  the  ducks  are  likely  to  eat  more  and  more  mos- 
quitoes or  more  minnows,  or  they  may  eat  more  trout  if  the 
trout  are  unduly  numerous.  This  explains  why  fish-eating  birds 
may  be  very  destructive  to  artificially  raised  trout,  which  are 
kept  in  small  ponds  in  numbers  far  exceeding  those  normally 
bred  in  equal  space  in  the  streams. 

We  sometimes  hear  complaints  from  fishermen  that  scoters 
(commonly  called  coots),  or  other  diving  ducks,  are  destroying 
shellfish  and  thus  injuring  the  shellfish  industry.  But  these 
ducks  feed  only  on  very  small  shellfish,  never  on  marketable 
ones.  They  cannot  swallow  the  larger  ones.  Moreover,  Dr. 
G.  W.  Field,  formerly  chairman  of  the  Massachusetts  Commis- 
sion on  Fisheries  and  Game,  and  now  (1921)  in  the  fisheries 
service  of  Brazil,  informs  me  that  the  thinning  out  of  young 
clams  which  is  accomplished  by  these  birds  tends  to  promote 
the  rapid  growth  of  those  that  are  left,  so  that  they  more 
quickly  reach  marketable  size.  At  first  the  clams  are  often  so 
numerous  that  they  have  neither  sufficient  room  nor  food  to 
develop.  He  also  assures  me  that  these  ducks  feed  on  destruc- 
tive enemies  of  shellfish.  Though  possibly  harmful  at  times, 
probably  these  birds  are  indispensable  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
shellfish  industry. 

If  we  consider  the  fact  that  mosquitoes  and  flies  are  among 
the  most  dangerous  enemies  to  the  life  and  health  of  mankind 
because  they  carry  and  spread  the  germs  of  weakening  and  even 
fatal  diseases,  we  shall  more  readily  appreciate  the  services  of 
birds  in  destroying  these  insects.  The  common  house  fly^  dis- 
seminates on  human  food  the  germs  of  typhoid  fever,  tubercu- 
losis and  other  diseases.  Many  birds,  particularly  poultry  and 
game  birds,  feed  on  fly  larvae.  Mosquitoes  infect  people  with 
the  germs  of  malaria  and  yellow  fever.  Because  of  this  distri- 
bution of  such  diseases  by  insects,  great  tracts  of  fertile  land 
are  rendered  uninhabitable  to  white  men,  many  deaths  occur 
annually,  and  there  is  an  enormous  yearly  economic  loss  through 
illness  and  death.  Many  birds  destroy  mosquitoes  or  their 
larvae;  among  these  the  shore  birds  and  wild-fowl  stand  pre- 


57 


eminent.  The  people  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey  for  years  and 
years  industriously  killed  off  wild-fowl  and  shore  birds  for  the 
market.  Now  they  are  on  record  as  spending  $3,500,000  a  year 
in  fighting  mosquitoes.1  But  New  Jersey  is  not  alone,  either  in 
such  killing  or  in  such  subsequent  expenditure. 

Probably  most  surface-feeding  ducks  that  get  a  large  part  of 
their  summer  food  about  the  margins  of  ponds  and  pools  de- 
stroy incalculable  numbers  of  mosquitoes  by  eating  the  larvae 
which  abound  in  such  places.  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Dixon,  commis- 


THE  MALLARD. 

A  destroyer  of  disease-distributing  mosquitoes.    (From  Game  Birds,  Wild  Fowl  and 

Shore  Birds.) 

sioner  of  public  health  in  Pennsylvania,  writes  that  for  some 
years  he  has  used  ducks  to  keep  down  mosquitoes  in  swamps 
that  were  difficult  to  drain,  but  that  he  never  fully  appreciated 
the  high  efficiency  of  the  duck  as  a  destroyer  of  mosquito  life 
until  he  made  the  following  test  in  a  swamp  after  several  un- 
successful attempts  to  destroy  the  mosquito  larvae  by  intro- 
ducing fishes.  He  divided  the  swampy  area  into  two  equal 
parts,  each  about  1,400  square  feet  in  extent.  One  pond  was 

1  Washburn,  F.  L.:  Fins,  Feathers  and  Fur,  June,  1915,  p.  7. 


58 


stocked  with  goldfish,  and  the  other  was  left  as  a  feeding 
ground  for  ducks.  Both  were  ideal  as  breeding  places  for 
mosquitoes.  Where  the  fish  had  been  introduced  mosquito 
larvse  continued  to  flourish;  but  soon  in  the  other  pond  there 
were  no  larvse  to  be  found.  He  then  put  ten  mallard  ducks  into 
the  fish  pond,  and  within  forty-eight  hours  only  a  few  larvse 
were  left.  The  following  letter  commenting  on  this  experience 
is  of  interest  to  all  who  suffer  in  summer  from  a  pest  of  mos- 
quitoes :  — 

Corroborating  Dr.  Dixon's  interesting  report  on  the  duck  as  a  preven- 
tative  against  malaria  and  yellow  fever  (Journal,  American  Medical  As- 
sociation, October  3, 1914,  p.  1203),  I  have  been  observing  the  food  of  the 


v&S&k.  ~* 


WOOD  DUCK. 

One  of  the  most  useful  native  ducks  which  destroys  mosquitoes.    (From  Game 
Birds,  Wild  Fowl  and  Shore  Birds.) 

wild  duck  for  the  past  three  years,  and  find  that  the  mosquito  and  larvae 
are  readily  devoured  by  the  duck.  I  have  eight  varieties  under  observa- 
tion, and  note  that  the  best  insect  destroyers  are  the  beautiful  wood  ducks 
(Aix  sponsa),  and  the  green-winged  teal  (Nettion  carolinensis) .  These 
ducks  are  smaller  than  the  mallard  (Anas  platyrhyncos),  and  their  diet 


59 

more  insectivorous.  The  wood  duck  is  almost  extinct  except  in  cap- 
tivity.1 It  is  the  most  beautiful  of  all  the  duck  family;  therefore  the 
introduction  of  this  bird  would  help  to  perpetuate  its  kind,  and  also  be  of 
use  in  keeping  down  all  noxious  aquatic  insect  life.  —  WM.  C.  HERMAN, 
Instructor  in  Pharmacology,  Medical  College  of  the  University  of 
Cincinnati.* 

Gulls  and  terns  that  breed  on  islands  in  inland  lakes  are 
effectual  destroyers  of  many  insect  pests.  In  many  parts  of 
the  world  gulls  follow  the  plow  and  pick  up  grubs,  wireworms, 
etc.,  that  are  found  in  the  upturned  soil;  gulls  also  greatly 
assist  in  checking  irruptions  of  destructive  field  mice  and  other 
small  rodents. 

Terns  and  some  other  sea  birds  aid  fishermen  by  guiding  them 
to  schools  of  food  fish.  The  birds  find  schools  of  small  sur- 
face fish  on  which  larger  marketable  fish  feed,  and  by  flocking 
to  feed  on  little  fish  the  birds  point  out  to  the  watching 
fishermen  the  places  where  they  must  cast  their  nets.  Both 
seine  fishermen  and  line  fishermen  watch  these  birds  closely, 
and  often  are  guided  largely  by  the  actions  of  the  gathering 
flocks.  Gulls  and  terns  serve  also  to  guide  mariners  in  foggy 
weather  along  dangerous  coasts.  These  birds  breed  in  large 
colonies  on  isolated  islands.  Navigators  of  coasting  craft  know 
well  the  locations  of  these  islands  and  their  position  in  relation 
to  the  channels.  In  thick  fog  a  vessel  often  stops  at  certain 
points  until  the  listening  navigator  can  hear  the  cries  of  the 
breeding  birds  on  some  well-known  island.  These  cries,  by 
giving  warning  of  the  rocks  and  locating  their  direction,  enable 
him  to  correct  his  course.  In  summer  fogs  longshore  fishermen 
often  verify  their  courses  by  watching  the  undeviating  flight 
of  terns  flying  to  some  well-known  island  with  food  for  their 
young. 

Dr.  Frank  M.  Chapman  has  shown,  in  an  interesting  paper 
on  the  ornithology  of  the  first  voyage  of  Columbus,  that  we 
possibly  owe  the  discovery  of  America  by  Columbus  to  the  fact 
that  he  happened  to  approach  the  land  at  the  right  time  and 
place  to  cross  the  line  of  the  autumnal  flight  of  birds  that  were 
flying  from  the  Bermudas  to  the  Bahamas  and  Antilles.  The 

1  Since  this  was  written  laws  protecting  the  wood  duck  have  been  passed,  and  the  species  has 
increased  considerably  in  numbers  in  some  parts  of  the  United  States. 
»  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association,  October  17,  1914,  p.  1410. 


60 

discouraged  seamen  were  on  the  verge  of  mutiny,  and  might 
have  compelled  Columbus  to  return  to  Spain,  had  not  some 
small  land  birds  finally  come  aboard  unwearied  and  singing. 
The  course  of  the  vessel  was  changed  to  follow  the  direction  of 
their  flight,  and  the  voyage  was  thus  shortened  200  miles  and 
ended  in  the  discovery  of  a  new  world.1 

CASH  VALUE  OF  BIRDS'  SERVICES. 

Many  calculations  have  been  made  to  determine  the  actual 
cash  value  of  birds  to  the  farmers,  but,  owing  to  the  many 
factors  to  be  considered,  such  figures  in  the  nature  of  the  case 
may  invite  criticism.  Dr.  W.  T.  Hornaday  asserts  that  each 
woodpecker  in  the  United  States  is  worth  $20,  and  each  nut- 
hatch or  chickadee  from  $5  to  $10,2  but  he  does  not  tell  us  how 
he  arrives  at  these  figures. 

On  December  12,  1907,  President  Roosevelt  sent  a  message 
to  Congress  transmitting  a  report  of  the  Secretary  of  Agri- 
culture on  the  work  of  the  Biological  Survey.  In  this  report  it 
is  estimated  that  a  single  species,  Swainson's  hawk,  a  bird 
inhabiting  only  a  limited  region  in  the  western  United  States, 
saves  the  farmers  of  that  country  $57,600  each  year  by  destroy- 
ing grasshoppers,  and  this  is  by  no  means  the  most  common  or 
most  useful  of  American  hawks.  After  the  breeding  season 
these  birds  collect  in  large  flocks  on  the  western  plains,  where 
they  feed  mainly  on  grasshoppers,  locusts  and  crickets.3  In- 
cluding the  field  mice  that  they  eat,  these  hawks  are  estimated 
to  save  the  western  farmer  $117,000  annually. 

In  1885  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  passed  a  bounty  act  under 
which  in  a  year  and  a  half  $90,000  were  paid  mainly  for  the 
destruction  of  hawks  and  owls,  the  bounty  being  50  cents  each. 
Dr.  C.  Hart  Merriam,  then  chief  ornithologist  and  mammalogist 
of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture,  estimated  the 
value  of  the  chickens  killed  annually  in  Pennsylvania  by  hawks 
and  owls  in  a  year  and  a  half  to  be  $1,875,  and  showed  that  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania  had  paid  out  $90,000  to  save  its  farmers 
a  loss  on  poultry  of  less  than  $2,000.  His  figures  also  showed 
that  each  hawk  and  owl  was  worth  on  the  average  $20  a  year 

1  Papers  presented  to  World's  Congress  on  Ornithology,  1896,  p.  181. 

»  Hornaday,  W.  T.:  Our  Vanishing  Wild  Life,  1913,  p.  213. 

»  Sixtieth  Congress,  First  Session,  Senate  Document  No.  132,  1907,  p.  3. 


61 

to  the  farmers  of  the  State  as  a  destroyer  of  mice  and  insects. 
He  therefore  estimated  that  the  pests  left  alive  by  the  destruc- 
tion of  128,571  hawks  and  owls  had  cost  the  people  of  the  State 
in  that  year  and  a  half  $3,850,000  in  addition  to  the  $90,000 
paid  out  in  bounties.  Dr.  Merriam's  eminent  position  as  a 
scientist  lends  weight  to  his  estimates. 

A  Michigan  man  boasts  of  having  killed  over  4,000  hawks, 
and  publishes  his  photograph  together  with  those  of  11  dead 
hawks  nailed  to  a  barn  door,  all  killed  by  him  in  one  day. 

Mr.  J.  Warren  Jacobs  observing  this  photograph  is  led  to 
remark  that  nearly  three-quarters  of  the  prey  of  the  red- 
shouldered  hawk  consists  of  field  mice,  and  almost  all  the 
remaining  fourth  consists  of  insects.  This  report  is  based  upon 
examinations  of  the  stomachs  of  many  hundreds  of  specimens 
by  naturalists  in  different  parts  of  the  United  States,  and  par- 
ticularly on  examinations  made  by  the  Biological  Survey  of  the 
United  States  Department  of  Agriculture.  Mr.  Jacobs  says 
that- 

The  sacrifice  of  these  11  red-shouldered  hawks,  in  one  day,  spared  the 
lives  of  possibly,  if  not  actually,  77  field  mice  daily  (7  for  each  hawk), 
or  28,105  during  the  year.  Each  of  these  28,105  mice  would  have  de- 
voured one-half  ounce  of  grass  tendrils  and  rootlets  daily,  totaling  878 
pounds,  or  the  equivalent  of  one-half  that  much  hay  or  pasture  grass  in 
a  day,  equaling  239  pounds,  or  43£  tons  in  one  year.  The  value  of 
43^  tons  of  hay  is  about  $696.  Thus  each  of  these  11  hawks  would 
have  prevented  the  destruction  of  $63  worth  of  hay  by  mice  in  one  year. 
To  these  figures  should  be  added  $15  saved  by  each  hawk  in  destroying 
other  mammal  pests  and  insects. l 

These  hawks,  says  Mr.  Jacobs,  are  called  chicken  hawks,  but 
do  not  deserve  the  name,  for  less  than  4  per  cent  of  their  food 
consists  of  poultry  and  game  birds. 

Mr.  C.  C.  Clute  relates  the  following  instance  of  money  saved 
through  attracting  birds:  — 

I  know  one  farmer  in  particular  who  lost  during  one  summer  three  rows 
of  com  40  rods  long.  The  corn  grew  next  to  a  fence-row  heavily  sodded 
with  bluegrass,  which  produced  swarms  of  grasshoppers.  For  the  sake  of 
the  experiment  alone,  for  this  farmer  was  a  skeptic,  last  spring  he  put  up 
21  bird  houses,  placed  2  rods  apart,  on  the  fence  along  the  40  rods.  The 
houses  were  some  that  he  and  the  boys  had  made,  during  the  winter 

i  Jacobs,  J.  Warren:  Observations  by  the  Way,  Waynesburg,  Pa.,  Feb.  18, 1916.  (Apparently 
Mr.  Jacobs,  figures  are  too  low  and  the  quantity  of  hay  should  be  doubled.) 


62 

months,  from  dry  goods  boxes  obtained  in  town.  Thirteen  of  the  21 
houses  were  inhabited  during  the  following  summer,  6  by  wrens,  4  by 
bluebirds,  and  3  by  colonies  of  purple  martins.  The  grasshoppers  that 
summer  made  a  rich  living  for  the  birds,  and  when  the  fall  came  that  farmer 
had  the  satisfaction  of  gathering  23  bushels  of  corn  from  the  three  rows 
that  grew  next  to  the  fence,  right  where  there  had  been  no  corn  at  all  the 
year  before.  With  corn  selling  at  55  cents  per  bushel,  it  represented  a 
saving  of  $12.65  for  that  year  alone,  and  with  the  same  insurance  for  the 
following  year  with  no  outlay  at  all. x 

The  most  recent  investigation  regarding  the  cash  value  of  a 
bird  is  that  of  Dr.  Gross,  who  makes  the  following  estimates  in 
regard   to  the  dickcissel  or  black-throated  bunting.     He  has 
studied  the  food  of  the  young  of  the  dickcissel  and  also  the  food 
of  the  adults.     He  noticed  that  from  the  fifth  day  until  the 
young  left  the  nest  their  food  was  practically  all  grasshoppers. 
These  grasshoppers  were  taken  from   a  near-by  clover  field 
which  was  overrun  with  them.    During  the  last  days  spent  by 
the  young  in  the  nest,  grasshoppers  were  fed  to  them  at  the  rate 
of  one  every  three  or  four  minutes.     A  conservative  estimate 
indicates  that  about  200  grasshoppers  were  eaten  each  day  by 
the  two  adult  birds  and  their  four  young.    Dr.  Gross  says  that 
if  each  dickcissel  family  averages  as  well  as  these  birds,  then 
the  more  than  a  million  dickcissels  in  Illinois  destroy  about 
100,000,000  grasshoppers  in  a  day  during  this  period  of  the 
nesting  season.     Since  each  grasshopper,  according  to  an  esti- 
mate made  by  Professor  Lawrence  Bruner,  entomologist  of  the 
Nebraska  Experiment  Station,  consumes  about  one  and  one-half 
times  its  own  weight,  or  about  .05  ounce  of  grass  a  day,  then 
100,000,000  grasshoppers  would  destroy  about  156  tons  daily. 
The  price  of  hay  during  the  summer  of  1918  was  about  $30  a 
ton;  therefore  the  dickcissels  of  Illinois  during  the  active  pejiod 
of  the  nesting  season  saved  the  people  of  the  State  about  $4,680 
daily  by  the  destruction  of  grasshoppers  alone.2 

Mr.  W.  L.  McAtee,  the  eminent  economic  ornithologist  of 
the  Bureau  of  Biological  Survey,  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture,  says  that  investigation  has  shown  that  most  birds 
are  beneficial,  although  in  varying  degrees,  and  that  only  four 
or  five  species  in  the  United  States  are  consistently  injurious. 

1  Iowa  Conservation,  January-March,  1917,  Vol.  I,  No.  1,  p.  12. 

»  Gross,  Alfred  O.:  Auk,  Vol.  XXXVIII,  No.  2,  April,  1921,  p.  166. 


63 

Taking  numerous  bird  censuses  as  a  basis  he  asserts  that  it  is 
practically  certain  that  there  are  nearly  4,000,000,000  breeding 
birds  in  the  United  States  each  summer.  The  great  majority 
of  the  birds  of  the  United  States  are  migratory,  and  those 
which  are  purely  migratory  in  this  country,  breeding  in  northern 
North  America,  probably  equal  or  surpass  the  population  of  our 
breeding  birds. 

Mr.  McAtee  estimates  the  value  of  each  bird  as  an  insect 
eater  at  10  cents  a  year,  which  he  himself  admits  is  a  ridicu- 
lously low  figure.  Then,  estimating  the  value  of  the  purely 
migratory  species  as  one-sixth  of  that  of  the  breeding  species 
(both  resident  and  migratory),  he  asserts  that  without  the 
services  of  the  birds  the  yearly  bill  for  insect  injury  in  the 
country  would  be  more  than  $444,000,000  greater  than  it  now 
is.  This  sum  is  more  than  one-third  of  the  latest  estimate  of 
the  total  annual  damage  by  insects  in  the  United  States.1 

UTILITY  OF  BIRDS  IN  WAR. 

All  humanitarians  hope  that  wars  will  cease,  and  perhaps,  in 
time,  during  the  evolution  of  the  race,  human  nature  will  be- 
come so  changed  that  such  wholesale  murder  will  be  abolished, 
but  probably  no  man  now  living  will  see  that  day.  So  long  as 
we  have  war  the  services  of  birds  in  war  should  be  recognized. 
In  the  recent  great  struggle  which  involved  more  than  half  the 
world,  the  keen  senses  and  powerful  flight  of  birds  were  used  to 
great  advantage. 

When  the  great  German  airships  began  to  raid  England, 
pheasants  and  other  birds  heard  or  saw  them  coming  at  great 
distances,  and  gave  the  alarm  by  their  insistent  cries  long  before 
human  eyes  or  ears  could  discern  their  approach. 

In  the  trenches  great  numbers  of  canaries  were  used  to  detect 
the  first  approach  of  poison  gas  before  it  became  apparent  to 
the  less  subtle  senses  of  man.  The  distress  of  the  little  birds 
gave  timely  warning  to  the  soldiers  that  it  was  time  to  don  the 
gas  masks. 

Submarines  and  mines  often  were  detected  by  watching  the 
behavior  of  sea  gulls  which,  owing  to  the  height  at  which 

1  Speech  of  Congressman  S.  D.  Fess  of  Ohio  on  the  Federal  Migratory  Bird  Treaty  Act,  Con- 
gressional Record,  Sixty-fifth  Congress,  Second  Session,  Vol.  56,  No.  146,  June  14, 1918,  p.  7956. 


64 

they  flew  above  the  water,  could  readily  see  the  submerged 
submarine  boats  which  they  followed  for  the  sake  of  the  garbage 
which  all  boats  must  discharge  into  the  sea.  Lookouts  from 
both  destroyers  and  airplanes  watched  the  movements  of  the 
gulls,  and  by  so  doing  sometimes  located  the  submerged  enemy. 
Mines,  escaping  from  their  moorings,  floated  on  the  sea  and 
formed  a  danger  which  could  only  be  met  by  extreme  vigilance. 
Gulls  frequently  perched  and  rested  on  the  arms  of  these 
floating  mines  and  so  called  attention  to  them  and  saved  ships 
that  otherwise  might  have  been  destroyed. 

During  the  war  the  chief  countries  of  the  world  were  combed 
for  carrier  pigeons.  Wherever  on  the  battlefields  a  heavy 
"barrage"  of  exploding  shells  was  laid  down,  breaking  the 
wires  and  disabling  the  runners  by  whom  communication  was 
kept  up  with  headquarters  or  with  the  batteries,  carrier  pigeons 
were  sent  out,  if  available,  with  messages,  and  they  conveyed 
a  very  large  percentage  of  those  messages  safely  through  the 
hell  of  shellfire,  despite  the  fact  that  shotguns  were  often  used 
by  the  enemy  to  bring  down  the  birds. 

The  crew  of  a  mine  sweeper  sunk  by  a  submarine  were  saved 
by  a  pigeon  messenger  which,  sent  by  the  dying  captain, 
reached  its  loft,  though  wounded  and  dying,  in  time  to  bring 
a  swift  destroyer  to  the  scene.  The  crews  of  seaplanes  broken 
down  and  wrecked  at  sea  were  saved  by  timely  messages 
carried  by  these  birds  which  brought  them  speedy  assistance. 
A  German  submarine  base  was  discovered  on  the  coast  and  a 
pigeon  messenger  carried  the  news  in  time  to  bring- destroyers 
to  capture  the  U-boats.  This  very  brief  and  imperfect  account 
of  the  utility  of  birds  in  the  great  war  is  sufficient  to  show  that 
their  services  were  not  only  valuable  but  essential. 

COMMERCIAL  VALUE  OF  BIRDS. 

The  commercial  value  of  birds  to  man  is  incalculable.  From 
time  immemorial  birds  have  furnished  both  savage  and  civilized 
man  with  a  considerable  part  of  his  food;  and  since  the  marts 
of  trade  have  become  established,  the  flesh,  eggs  and  feathers 
of  birds  have  had  a  large  place  in  trade  and  commerce.  Birds 
always  have  had  a  prominent  place  in  the  game  markets  of  all 
civilized  lands. 


65 


Early  Abundance  of  Game  Birds. 

When  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  settled  at  Plymouth  in  1620,  this 
country  was  a  vast  breeding  ground  of  game  birds  and  mam- 
mals. The  elk,  moose,  deer,  and  the  bison  or  buffalo,  roamed 
the  land  in  countless  numbers.  Multitudes  of  wild  turkeys  and 
many  millions  of  grouse  and  quails  were  found  on  mountain 
and  plain.  Pigeons  sometimes  filled  the  air  with  their  amazing 
myriads,  hiding  the  sun,  and  in  migration  passed  over  the  sky 
in  constant  streams  and  in  astounding  numbers.  Plovers, 
snipes,  curlews  and  sandpipers  were  so  abundant  that  at  times 
the  very  soil  of  the  Mississippi  valley  seemed  to  be  alive  and 
moving  with  their  feeding  hordes.  They  swarmed  on  the 
Atlantic  coast,  the  islands  of  the  sea,  and  even  on  the  shores  of 
the  Great  Lakes  in  innumerable  multitudes,  while  countless 
numbers  of  waterfowl  breeding  over  half  the  area  of  what  is 
now  the  United  States,  and  over  nearly  all  of  wThat  is  now 
British  America,  gathered  in  innumerable  hordes,  sweeping  over 
the  country  in  the  autumnal  and  vernal  migrations.1  A  similar 
abundance  of  game  birds  once  existed  in  nearly  every  land. 

Game  Birds  as  Food. 

In  the  early  days  in  America  game  was  of  little  value  com- 
mercially, and  many  a  hunter  would  not  waste  ammunition  on 
anything  smaller  than  a  bear,  a  deer  or  a  wild  turkey.  But 
from  the  very  first  settlement,  wild  turkeys,  geese  and  other 
waterfowl,  grouse  and  pigeons  formed  a  considerable  part  of 
the  food  of  the  settlers.  Such  an  abundant  source  of  nourishing 
food  never  was  neglected,  and  as  the  large  game  diminished  and 
disappeared  before  the  advance  of  civilization,  the  game  birds 
became  relatively  more  important  as  a  food  supply  for  the 
growing  population.  During  the  early  settlement  of  the  country 
there  were  no  markets,  and  when  grouse  were  first  sold  they 
brought  but  1  copper  cent  each,  while  even  as  late  as  Audubon's 
time  wild  turkeys  might  be  bought  in  the  west  for  25  cents 
apiece.  But  as  the  birds  decreased  in  number  and  the  demand 
increased,  prices  were  correspondingly  raised.  As  civilization 

1  Game  Birds,  Wild-Fowl  and  Shore  Birds,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1916, 
Introduction. 


66 

extended  over  the  great  west,  and  railroads  spanned  the 
country,  game  birds  became  a  great  commercial  asset,  and  were 
pursued  and  exploited  with  such  vigor  that  in  time  some  of 
them  became  nearly  extinct  and  a  few  species  wholly  disap- 
peared. Considering  the  vast  supply  of  game  formerly  sold  in 
the  markets  of  the  United  States,  very  few  figures  relating  to 
the  game  business  are  available  to-day. 

Dr.  D.  G.  Elliott  asserts  that  a  game  dealer  in  New  York 
received  20  tons  of  prairie  chickens  in  one  consignment  in  1864, 
and  that  some  of  the  larger  dealers  sold  from  150,000  to  200,000 
birds  in  six  months.  Professor  Samuel  Aughey,  who  gathered 
statistics  regarding  the  destruction  of  bobwhites  and  pinnated 
grouse,  or  prairie  hens,  in  Nebraska  from  1865  to  1877,  asserts 
that  about  450,000  of  these  birds  were  killed  each  year  in  thirty 
counties  of  Nebraska  alone.  Game  Commissioner  John  H. 
Wallace,  Jr.,  of  Alabama  says  that  before  the  present  game  laws 
of  his  State  were  enacted  no  less  than  9,000,000  bobwhites  were 
killed  there  in  one  season.  In  "Forest  and  Stream"  of  March 
11,  1912,  the  assertion  is  made  that  on  February  18,  9,000  bob- 
whites  in  one  illegal  shipment  were  seized  by  a  sheriff  and  a  game 
warden  in  Oklahoma.1 

In  1909,  when  the  sale  of  game  was  at  its  height,  President 
Frank  M.  Miller  of  the  State  Game  Commission  of  Louisiana 
was  able  to  get  rather  accurate  figures  of  the  game  birds  killed 
that  year  in  that  State.  They  totaled  5,719,214.  The  ex- 
ploitation of  the  passenger  pigeon,  once  on  its  roosting  places 
and  on  its  nesting  grounds  perhaps  the  most  numerous  bird 
ever  known  in  any  country,  and  now  believed  to  be  extinct, 
will  serve  to  illustrate  the  commercial  value  of  game  birds. 
This  bird  was  a  great  source  of  food  supply  to  the  early  settlers, 
who  took  large  numbers  in  nets.  With  the  growth  and  pros- 
perity of  cities,  quantities  of  pigeons  came  into  the  city  markets. 
Audubon  says  that  in  1815  he  saw  schooners  at  the  wharves  in 
New  York  loaded  in  bulk  with  these  pigeons,  killed  up  the 
Hudson  River.  From  that  time  the  trapping,  netting  and 
shooting  of  the  pigeons  went  on  apace  until  1878,  when  Pro- 
fessor H.  B.  Roney  estimated,  after  examining  the  ground  and 
the  market  shipments,  that  at  least  1,000,000,000  pigeons  were 

i  Game  Birds,  Wild-Fowl  and  Shore  Birds,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1916,  p.  514. 


67 

killed  in  Michigan  that  year.1  It  is  generally  believed,  how- 
ever, that  this  was  an  overestimate.  But  Mr.  Sullivan  Cook 
says  that  in  1869  for  about  forty  days  there  were  shipped  from 
Hartford,  Michigan,  and  vicinity  three  carloads  a  day  of  150 
barrels  each;  at  55  dozen  pigeons  to  the  barrel,  this  totals 
880,000  birds  for  the  season.  He  estimates  that  in  two  years 
15,840,000  were  shipped  from  Shelby,  Michigan.  Again,  five 
years  later,  Mr.  C.  H.  Engle  asserted  there  were  shipped  from 
Petoskey,  Michigan,  five  carloads  a  day  for  thirty  days,  with 
an  average  of  8,250  dozens  to  the  carload,  or  14,850,000  birds.2 

Hunters  and  netters  followed  the  pigeons  to  every  known 
roost  and  nesting  place  until  the  species  was  nearly  extinct. 
The  destruction  of  the  golden  plover,  upland  plover  and  Eskimo 
curlew  was  brought  about  by  the  market  demand,  but  the 
birds  were  mostly  shot.  Audubon  asserts  that  on  the  sixteenth 
day  of  November,  1821,  he  was  invited  by  some  gunners  to 
accompany  them  to  the  neighborhood  of  Lake  St.  John,  near 
New  Orleans,  there  to  observe  the  flight  of  thousands  of  golden 
plovers.  The  gunners  were  familiar  with  the  route  that  the 
plovers  ordinarily  took.  The  men  gathered  in  parties  of  from 
20  to  50,  and  sitting  on  the  ground,  equidistant  from  each 
other,  imitated  calls  of  birds  so  that  the  plovers  came  within  a 
few  yards.  Audubon,  having  reckoned  the  number  of  gunners 
in  the  field,  and  estimating  the  average  number  shot  per  man 
during  the  day  at  20  dozen  birds,  calculated  that  48,000  golden 
plovers  were  killed  there  that  day.  Two  men  on  the  Island  of 
Nantucket  in  the  decade  between  1840  and  1850  killed  for 
market  enough  plovers  and  curlews  in  one  day  to  fill  a  tipcart 
two-thirds  full.3  From  Audubon's  time  until  the  approach  of 
the  extinction  of  the  passenger  pigeon  in  1888,  golden  plovers 
and  Eskimo  curlews  were  shot  by  sportsmen  both  east  and 
west  in  enormous  numbers. 

When  the  passenger  pigeon  became  so  scarce  that  it  was 
difficult  for  the  pigeon  netters  to  find  employment  for  their 
men,  the  marketmen  turned  to  the  supply  of  Eskimo  curlews; 
golden  plovers  and  upland  plovers,  that  were  still  numerous  in 

»  American  Field,  Vol.  X,  pp.  345-347. 

«  Merehon,  L.  B.:  The  Passenger  Pigeon,  1907,  pp.  171,  172;  see  also  Game  Birds,  Wild-Fowl 
and  Shore  Birds,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1916,  p.  454. 

*  Game  Birds,  Wild-Fowl  and  Shore  Birds,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1916, 
p.  344. 


68 

the  west.  In  one  year  alone  (1890)  two  Boston  firms  received 
from  Nebraska,  Missouri  and  Texas  40  barrels  closely  packed 
with  these  birds.1  Similar  shipments  continued  to  arrive  in  the 
large  cities,  with  the  result  that  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  or  early  in  the  twentieth,  the  Eskimo 
curlew  became  practically  extinct,  and  the  upland  plover  and 
golden  plover  were  well  on  the  way  to  extinction. 

As  game  birds  became  scarce  small  birds  appeared  in  many 
markets.  In  1902,  42,059  "game  birds"  were  seized  in  a  cold- 
storage  house  in  New  York  City,  8,058  of  which  were  found 
to  be  snow  buntings,  7,607  sandpipers  and  288  bobolinks.2 
Mr.  James  Henry  Rice,  Jr.,  says  that  720,000  bobolinks  were 
shipped  to  market  in  one  season  from  Georgetown,  South 
Carolina,  and  countless  numbers  of  small  birds  were  sold  in 
other  southern  markets. 

Dr.  P.  P.  Claxton  of  the  University  of  Tennessee  tells  of  a 
robin  roost  near  Forest  Hills  in  that  State  where  robins  were 
dazed  by  torchlight  night  after  night  and  killed  by  hundreds.* 
Dr.  Hornaday  says  that  one  small  hamlet  in  Tennessee  sent  to 
market  yearly  about  120,000  dead  robins.4  During  the  last 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  song  birds  in  great  numbers  were 
sold  openly  hi  southern  markets.  At  that  time  practically  all 
the  game  birds  in  the  United  States  were  menaced  with  extirpa- 
tion, but  during  the  second  decade  of  the  twentieth  century 
State  laws  were  passed  prohibiting  the  sale  of  wild  game.  Such 
laws  were  not  only  enacted  by  most  of  the  States,  but  more 
recently  a  regulation  forbidding  sale  of  migratory  game  birds 
was  finally  promulgated  by  the  Secretary  of  Agriculture,  under 
the  Federal  Migratory  Bird  Treaty  Act,  thus  making  illegal  the 
sale  of  all  native  game  birds  in  the  markets  of  the  United 
States,  except  such  as  under  proper  restrictions  may  be  raised 
on  game  farms  and  game  preserves.  The  rearing  of  such  birds 
under  such  conditions  may  eventually  restock  the  markets  of 
the  country  with  game. 

The  great  demand  for  game  both  in  this  country  and  Europe 
has  much  depleted  the  supply  of  the  world's  game  birds. 

1  Mackay,  George  H.:  Auk,  Vol.  VIII,  No.  1, 1891,  p.  24. 

2  Hornaday,  W.  T.:  Our  Vanishing  Wild  Life,  1913,  p.  68. 

•  Pearson,  T.  Gilbert:   Bird-Lore,  Vol.  XII,  No.  5,  September-October,  1910,  p.  208. 
«  Hornaday,  W.  T.:  Our  Vanishing  Wild  Life,  1913,  p.  108. 


69 

Pheasants  from  India,  quails  from  Africa,  tinamous  from  South 
America,  lapwings  and  grouse  from  Europe,  and  other  species 
have  appeared  in  numbers  in  the  principal  markets  of  the 
world,  and  to-day  some  species  of  pheasants  are  almost  ex- 
tirpated from  their  native  land.  If  the  sale  of  foreign  game 
continues  many  species  may  become  extinct. 

Eggs  of  Sea  Birds  as  Food. 

Water  birds,  such  as  auks,  murres,  pelicans,  gulls,  terns, 
ducks  and  herons,  breed  in  communities  on  islands  in  lakes  or 
along  the  coasts  of  all  the  continents.  For  centuries  it  has  been 
the  common  custom  for  men  to  visit  these  colonies  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  nesting  season,  break  all  the  eggs  to  insure  a 
supply  of  fresh  ones,  and  then  about  every  alternate  day  to 
gather  all  the  new-laid  eggs  for  food.  As  market  demands  grew 
apace,  this  egg  gathering  became  a  regular  business.  On  the 
Atlantic  coast  of  North  America,  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
last  century,  all  eggs  from  an  inch  in  diameter  upward,  from 
Labrador  to  Texas,  were  taken  and  sold  to  consumers  or  in 
public  markets.  When  settlement  reached  the  coast  of  the 
Pacific  the  eggs  of  sea  birds  which  formerly  had  been  taken  in 
some  numbers  by  the  Indians  were  exploited  by  the  whites. 
Some  idea  of  the  enormous  numbers  of  eggs  gathered  may  be 
gained  from  the  statement  of  H.  W.  Elliot,  that  when  he  first 
visited  Walrus  Island  in  Behring  Sea  in  July,  1872,  six  men  in 
less  than  three  hours  loaded  to  the  water's  edge  with  murres' 
eggs  a  small  vessel  of  4  tons'  capacity.  Egging  was  carried  on 
as  a  business  for  nearly  fifty  years  in  the  Farrallone  Islands 
off  the  coast  of  California.  Myriads  of  sea  birds,  chiefly  gulls 
and  murres  or  California  guillemots  bred  on  these  islands.  The 
eggs  were  collected  and  sold  in  the  markets  of  San  Francisco  at 
from  12  to  20  cents  a  dozen  during  a  season  of  about  two 
months.  It  is  said  that  between  1850  and  1856  three  to  four 
million  eggs  were  marketed  from  these  islands.  On  Laysan 
Island,  one  of  the  Hawaiian  group,  the  eggs  of  thousands  of 
albatrosses  nesting  there  were  collected  and  loaded  on  the  cars 
of  a  narrow-gauge  railway  and  eaten  by  laborers  engaged  in 
shipping  guano  from  the  island.  It  was  customary  in  most 


70 

localities  along  the  coast  of  North  America  to  allow  the  birds 
to  hatch  some  eggs  late  in  the  season,  but  the  disregard  of  this 
custom  in  many  instances,  and  the  wholesale  killing  of  the 
birds,  destroyed  or  greatly  reduced  many  of  the  colonies  along 
the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  coasts.  Unrestricted  egging  was  re- 
sponsible for  a  good  part  of  the  great  diminution  of  sea  birds  in 
Labrador.  Audubon's  story  of  the  Labrador  eggers  published  in 
his  u Ornithological  Biography"  clearly  exhibits  terrible  de- 
struction among  sea  birds  on  the  Labrador  coast  early  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  business  was  finally  forbidden  by  law 
both  in  the  United  States  and  Canada,  but  some  illicit  egging 
is  carried  on  still,  even  in  regions  that  receive  special  protection 
by  wardens. 


Feathers  of  Sea  Birds  and  Wild-fowl  for  Bedding. 

In  the  colder  countries  of  the  world  the  feathers  and  down  of 
waterfowl  have  been  in  great  demand  for  centuries  as  filling  for 
beds  and  pillows.  Such  feathers  are  perfect  non-conductors  of 
heat,  and  beds,  pillows  or  coverlets  filled  with  them  represent 
the  acme  of  comfort  and  durability.  The  early  settlers  of  New 
England  saved  for  such  purposes  the  feathers  and  down  from 
the  thousands  of  wild-fowl  which  they  killed,  but  as  the  popu- 
lation increased  in  numbers  the  quantity  thus  furnished  was  in- 
sufficient and  the  people  sought  a  larger  supply  in  the  vast 
colonies  of  ducks  and  geese  along  the  Labrador  coast.  The 
manner  in  which  the  feathers  and  down  were  obtained,  unlike 
the  method  practiced  in  Europe,  did  not  tend  to  conserve  and 
protect  the  source  of  supply.  In  Iceland  the  natives  have  con- 
tinued to  receive  for  many  years  a  considerable  income  by 
collecting  eider  down,  but  there  they  do  not  "kill  the  gdbse 
that  lays  the  golden  eggs."  Ducks  line  their  nests  with  down 
plucked  from  their  own  breasts,  and  that  of  the  eider  is  par- 
ticularly valuable  for  bedding.  In  Iceland  these  birds  are  so 
carefully  protected  that  they  have  become  as  tame  and  un- 
suspicious as  domestic  fowls.  In  North  America,  where  they 
are  constantly  hunted,  they  often  conceal  their  nests  in  the 
midst  of  weeds  or  bushes;  but  in  Iceland  they  make  their 
nests  and  deposit  their  eggs  in  holes  dug  for  them  in  the  sod, 


71 

near  the  huts  of  the  inhabitants,  or  even  on  the  sodded  roofs 
of  these  huts.  When  the  first  downy  lining  is  removed  from 
the  nest  by  the  collectors  the  bird  replaces  it  with  more  down 
from  her  breast.  If  the  second  lining  is  taken  it  is  said  that 
the  male  bird  then  contributes  a  third.  The  people  never  dis- 
turb the  nest  after  this,  but  allow  the  birds  to  hatch  their  eggs 
and  rear  their  broods  unmolested.  Thus  a  supply  of  the  ducks 
is  maintained  so  that  the  people  derive  from  them  an  annual 
income. 

In  North  America  quite  a  different  policy  was  pursued.  The 
demand  for  feathers  became  so  great  in  the  New  England 
colonies  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  vessels 
were  fitted  out  there  for  the  coast  of  Labrador  for  the  express 
purpose  of  securing  the  feathers  and  down  of  wild-fowl.  Eider 
down  having  become  valuable,  and  these  ducks  being  in  the 
habit  of  congregating  by  thousands  on  barren  islands  of  the 
Labrador  coast,  the  birds  became  the  victims  of  the  ships* 
crews.  As  the  ducks  molt  all  their  primary  feathers  at  once 
in  July  or  August,  and  are  then  quite  incapable  of  flight,  and 
the  young  birds  are  unable  to  fly  until  well  grown,  the  hunters 
were  able  to  surround  the  helpless  birds,  drive  them  together 
and  kill  them  with  clubs.  Otis  says  that  "millions"  of  wild- 
fowl were  thus  destroyed,  and  that  in  a  few  years  their  haunts 
were  so  broken  up  by  this  wholesale  slaughter  and  their  numbers 
were  so  diminished  that  u feather  voyages"  became  unprofitable 
and  were  given  up.1  This  practice  (followed  by  the  almost 
continual  egging,  clubbing,  shooting,  etc.,  by  Labrador  fisher- 
men) may  have  been  a  chief  factor  in  the  extinction  of  the 
Labrador  duck,  that  species  of  supposed  restricted  breeding 
range.  No  doubt  had  the  eider  duck  been  restricted  in  its 
breeding  range  to  the  islands  of  Labrador,  it  also  would  have 
been  exterminated  long  ago.  After  the  failure  of  the  Labrador 
feather  voyages  the  American  market  was  supplied  with  the 
feathers  of  domestic  geese  and  with  eider  down  imported  from 
Europe. 

>  Otis,  Amos:   Genealogical  Notes  of  Barnstable  County  [Massachusetts),  Vol.  I,  1885,  p.  187. 


72 


Feathers  for  Ornament. 

In  the  midst  of  modern  civilization  we  still  cling  tenaciously 
to  rings,  beads  and  feathers,  the  ornaments  of  the  savage.  The 
trade  in  feathers  for  adornment  has  grown  to  such  enormous 
proportions  that  it  has  furnished  employment  or  partial  em- 
ployment to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people;  and  the  profits 
made  from  the  handling,  dyeing,  "manufacture"  and  sale  of 
feathers  have  run  into  millions,  if  not  billions  of  dollars. 
Birds  of  all  sizes  have  contributed  their  feathers  to  fashion's 
demands,  from  the  lowly  duck  or  chicken  of  the  farmyard  to 
the  giant  ostrich,  and  from  the  tiny  hummingbird,  warbler  or 
kinglet  to  the  regal  bird  of  paradise,  the  snowy-plumaged  egret, 
the  royal  eagle,  the  giant  condor  or  the  long-winged  albatross. 
This  trade  has  gone  on,  recklessly  slaughtering  and  extermi- 
nating the  birds  of  the  world,  until  public  sentiment  has  at- 
tempted to  call  a  halt  in  many  countries,  protecting  the  birds 
by  law,  and  forbidding  the  exportation  or  the  importation  of 
plumage.  Wardens  armed  with  rifles  have  been  placed  on  guard 
over  protected  bird  colonies.  Still  the  slaughter,  though 
checked  to  some  extent,  goes  on.  Tons  of  feathers  are  smug- 
gled out  of  one  country  and  into  another,  and  there  is  always 
a  supply  at  hand  for  woman's  adornment.  The  scarcity  of 
some  feathers  and  the  difficulty  of  smuggling  them  has  in- 
creased their  value  in  the  retail  market  to  much  more  than 
twice  their  weight  in  gold. 

During  the  last  century  there  was  a  great  demand  for  swan's 
down,  which  sold  at  high  prices  and  was  used  for  trimming  fine 
fans,  cloaks  and  other  articles  for  women's  wear  or  adornment. 
This  traffic  contributed  largely  toward  the  threatened  extinc- 
tion of  the  trumpeter  swan,  the  pitiful  remnant  of  which  the 
Canadian  authorities  are  now  trying  to  save.  We  have  no 
record  of  the  early  trade  in  swan  skins,  when  the  trumpeter 
swan  was  abundant  and  bred  widely  in  the  Athabasca-Mac- 
kenzie region,  but  the  number  sold  annually  by  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company  decreased  from  1,312  in  the  year  1854  to  122  in 
1877.  In  1899  the  Athabasca  output  had  dwindled  to  33  skins.1 
The  trumpeter  swan  is  now  nearly  extinct. 

1  Preble,  E.  A.:   North  American  Fauna,  No.  27,  Bureau  of  Biological  Survey,  United  States 
Department  of  Agriculture,  1908,  pp.  309,  310. 


73 

It  hardly  seems  possible  now  that  within  fifty  years  the  skins 
of  bluebirds,  tanagers,  orioles  and  even  swallows  were  in  de- 
mand in  Massachusetts  and  were  used  in  some  quantities  as 
millinery  ornaments.  Within  forty  years  the  egrets  of  the 
United  States  have  been  almost  exterminated,  and  the  gulls 
and  the  terns  of  the  Atlantic  coast  so  reduced  in  numbers  that 
at  least  two  species  have  been  nearly  extirpated.  When  I  was 
in  Florida  in  1878  immense  numbers  of  egrets  were  seen  in  the 
swamps  and  on  the  lakes,  rivers  and  lagoons  of  the  southern 
counties.  Even  then  the  plume  hunters  had  begun  their  ne- 
farious work,  and  ten  years  later  the  egrets  were  nearly  all 
gone.  A  remnant  of  their  former  vast  numbers  has  been  saved 
by  the  wardens  of  the  National  Association  of  Audubon 
Societies.  The  inhuman  and  revolting  cruelty  of  this  business 
should  have  brought  about  its  abolition  by  the  indignant  pro- 
test of  the  public.  The  birds  were  shot  on  or  near  the  nests, 
the  plumes  torn  from  their  bleeding  backs  and  the  helpless 
young  left  to  starve. 

Terns  were  shot  down  all  along  the  Atlantic  coast,  and  often 
their  wings  were  cut  off,  while  the  suffering  birds  were  still  alive. 
Half-naked  savages  were  furnished  with  cheap  guns  and  sent 
into  swamp  and  forest  fastnesses  in  all  parts  of  the  world, 
wherever  birds  of  desirable  plumage  could  be  obtained.  Mr. 
A.  H.  Meyer  of  New  York  testified  that  he  had  seen  plume 
hunters  in  Venezuela  tear  the  plumes  from  living  wounded 
egrets,  leaving  them  to  die  of  starvation,  unable  to  respond  to 
the  cries  of  their  starving  young  in  the  nests  above.  He  said 
that  he  had  seen  heartless  plume  hunters  tie  and  prop  up 
wounded  birds  as  decoys,  to  attract  others,  until  the  terrible 
red  ants  of  the  country  had  eaten  out  the  eyes  of  these  wounded 
living  but  helpless  birds.  In  1909  a  band  of  Japanese,  headed 
by  a  German  adventurer,  raided  Laysan  Island,  then  a  United 
States  government  bird  reservation,  and  before  they  were  dis- 
covered and  apprehended  they  had  killed  more  than  259,000 
birds.  There  were  259,000  pairs  of  wings  found  in  the  hold  of 
their  vessel,  with  2J  tons  of  feathers,  also  some  large  cases  and 
several  boxes  of  stuffed  birds.1  Many  of  the  albatrosses  taken 
were  so  fat  that  the  skin  and  feathers  were  likely  to  be  injured 

»  Pearson,  T.  G.:  The  Bird  Study  Book,  1917,  p.  141. 


74 

by  fatty  matter  after  their  removal  from  the  birds.  A  large 
number  of  these  birds,  therefore,  were  imprisoned  in  a  great 
dry  cistern,  where  they  were  starved  to  death  to  reduce  the 
fatty  tissue  and  save  trouble  in  cleaning  the  skins.  When  the 
revenue  cutter  " Thetis"  arrived  there  were  acres  of  dead  bodies 
and  bones,  and  about  three  carloads  of  wings,  feathers  and  skins. 
All  the  latter  were  seized,  with  the  exception  of  a  shed  full 
of  wings  which  were  left  behind  for  lack  of  space  to  carry  them 
on  the  ship.1  The  power  of  the  United  States  government  was 
not  sufficient  to  protect  the  islands  from  another  similar  raid 
later  by  Japanese,  and  it  is  said  that  practically  all  the  bird 
islands  in  the  Pacific  at  a  distance  from  our  coast  are  thus 
periodically  raided. 

Before  the  destruction  of  birds  for  millinery  purposes  in  the 
United  States  was  checked  by  law  and  public  sentiment, 
enormous  numbers  of  birds  were  destroyed.  The  millions  of 
egrets  in  the  country  were  reduced  to  a  few  thousands,  and 
great  quantities  of  grebes,  nesting  in  western  marshes,  were 
slaughtered.  No  reliable  estimate  of  the  number  of  birds 
killed  in  the  United  States  for  millinery  purposes  has  been 
made,  but  fragmentary  reports  may  give  the  reader  an  idea  of 
the  extent  of  the  slaughter  and  the  money  involved.  About 
70,000  bird  skins  were  sent  to  New  York  from  a  small  district 
on  Long  Island  in  about  four  months.  A  collector  brought  back 
11,000  skins  from  a  three  months'  trip.  One  New  York  firm 
had  a  contract  to  supply  40,000  skins  to  a  company  in  Paris, 
France.  A  dealer  during  a  three  months'  trip  to  South  Carolina 
prepared  11,018  bird  skins.  A  woman  milliner  went  to  Cobbs 
Island,  Virginia,  to  get  birds  to  fill  an  order  for  40,000  bird 
skins.  This  order  practically  exterminated  the  terns  then  on 
the  island.  Mr.  T.  Gilbert  Pearson,  now  (1921)  president^of 
the  National  Association  of  Audubon  Societies,  who  compiled 
his  figures  from  the  records  and  accounts  of  the  feather  hunters, 
says  that  500,000  terns  were  killed  for  millinery  purposes  on 
the  Sounds  of  North  Carolina  and  South  Carolina  in  se_ven 
years.2  Gunners  were  hired  to  kill  the  birds  at  10  cents  per 
bird.  One  auction  room  in  London  sold  in  three  months  400,000 

»  Hornaday,  W.  T.:  Our  Vanishing  Wild  Life,  1913,  pp.  139-141. 
»  The  Bird  Study  Book,  1917,  p.  141. 


75 

birds  from  America,  and  350,000  from  India,  and  this  was  only 
one  of  the  many  firms  in  this  and  other  European  cities  en- 
gaged in  this  business. 

After  the  trade  in  American  birds  was  largely  checked,  great 
quantities  of  the  skins  and  feathers  of  foreign  birds  continued 
to  come  into  American  markets.  When  in  1913  a  clause  pro- 
hibiting the  importation  of  the  plumage  of  wild  birds  was 
introduced  into  the  new  tariff  bill  then  pending  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  the  Imperial  German  Charge  d'Affaires  at  Wash- 
ington entered  a  protest,  asserting  that  the  proposed  prohibition 
would  entail  a  serious  loss  to  the  German  industry  of  millinery 
feathers.  He  quoted  returns  from  the  Consulate  General  of  the 
United  States,  showing  that  in  five  years  the  specified  value  of 
feathers  exported  to  the  United  States  from  the  Berlin  district 
alone  was  $3,079,498. 

The  tentacles  of  this  vast  octopus,  the  plumage  trade, 
reached  into  every  land.  A  list  of  the  wild  birds  slaughtered 
at  its  behest,  many  of  them  in  danger  of  extermination,  in- 
cludes many  of  the  most  remarkable  and  beautiful  of  the 
feathered  gems  of  the  world.  Australian  lyre  birds,  South' 
American  rheas  and  resplendent  trogons,  the  condor,  —  the 
largest  bird  that  flies,  —  the  wonderful  and  beautiful  pheas- 
ants of  India  and  China,  the  marabou  stork  of  Africa,  the 
bustards,  crowned  pigeons,  egrets  and  ibises,  and  scores  more 
from  many  parts  of  the  world,  are  included  in  the  list.  This 
enormous  remunerative  trade  will  exterminate  species  after 
species,  and  when  one  is  gone  another  will  be  used  to  take  its 
place,  unless  public  sentiment  can  be  aroused  to  secure  both 
the  passage  and  enforcement  of  laws  forbidding  the  possession 
and  sale  of  the  plumage  of  wild  birds  everywhere.  The  plumage 
of  domestic  fowls  and  that  of  game  birds  and  ostriches  raised 
on  farms  can  be  so  "manufactured"  as  to  take  the  place  of 
that  of  wild  birds,  if  women  must  wear  feathers.  The  prepa- 
ration of  the  feathers  of  poultry  and  ostriches  is  now  an  im- 
mense and  well-recognized  industry. 

Shooting  Birds  for  Sport. 

Most  of  the  hunting  of  game  birds  now  going  on  in  North 
America  is  done  in  the  name  of  sport,  although  this  sport  sup- 


76 

plies  much  nutritious  food;  also  it  supports  a  great  trade  in 
guns,  ammunition,  boats,  dogs,  tools,  clothing  and  other  sport- 
ing goods.  It  furnishes  employment  to  guides,  dog  breakers, 
gamekeepers,  boatmen  and  professional  hunters,  and  helps  to 
maintain  many  country  hostelries  and  seaside  hotels.  Many 
farmers  receive  money  enough  for  the  shooting  privileges  on 
their  farms  to  more  than  pay  their  taxes.  In  England  and 
Scotland,  where  there  are  many  game  farms  and  game  preserves, 
the  shooting  privileges  are  valuable  and  the  revenue  from  them 
is  considerable.  All  told,  many  thousands  of  families  derive 
part  or  all  of  their  support  from  occupations  connected  with 
catering  to  the  sportsman.  The  physical  benefit  which  harassed 
business  men  derive  from  field  sports  is  considerable,  and  un- 
doubtedly many  a  useful  life  has  been  prolonged  thereby. 

Value  of  Birds  in  Domestication. 

The  domestication  of  birds  has  been  of  inestimable  value  to 
mankind  from  remote  antiquity,  and  no  doubt  grew  from  the 
desire  of  the  primitive  agriculturist  to  have  constantly  at  hand 
a  delicate  nourishing  food  supply.  No  other  animals  are  capable 
of  furnishing  man  with  a  similarly  valuable  supply  of  both  meat 
and  eggs.  Thus  far,  excepting  the  ostrich,  only  such  species 
have  been  domesticated  as  belong  to  those  families  which  when 
wild  are  known  as  game  birds  and  wild-fowl,  and  when  domesti- 
cated, as  poultry.  These  include  chickens,  turkeys,  guinea 
fowls,  peacocks,  pigeons  and  doves,  ducks,  geese  and  swans. 
The  immense  value  of  these  birds  to  mankind  within  historic 
times  cannot  be  estimated.  In  the  United  States  alone  the 
annual  worth  of  poultry  products  in  1907  had  reached  nearly 
$300,000,000,  and  they  have  more  than  trebled  in  value  since 
that  time.  Mr.  Alton  E.  Briggs  of  the  Boston  Produce  Ex- 
change quotes  Mr.  Marshall  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Markets  to  the  effect  that  in  1918  the  fowls  of  the  United 
States  produced  for  market  2,500,000,000  dozens  of  eggs,  and 
he  asserts  that  these  market  eggs  alone  were  easily  worth  over 
$1,000,000,000,  to  say  nothing  of  the  eggs  used  by  the  farmers 
themselves,  or  the  vast  quantity  of  valuable  poultry  produced 
and  marketed.  The  worth  of  poultry  products  consumed  annu- 


77 

ally  in  Massachusetts  alone  is  estimated  at  $45,000,000  to  $50,- 
000,000,*  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  value  of  the  annual 
poultry  product  of  the  world  would  reach  $25,000,000,000. 
When  it  is  considered  that  in  all  the  centuries  but  few  species 
of  birds  have  been  domesticated,  only  one  of  which,  the  turkey, 
originated  in  America,  it  seems  probable  that  the  possibilities 
of  profitable  domestication  have  not  yet  been  exhausted. 

Fertility  from  the  Sea.  —  Immense  Value  of  Guano  Deposits. 

Bird  guano  consists  mainly  of  the  excreta  of  fish-eating  sea 
birds,  in  which  are  sometimes  intermixed  much  smaller  quantities 
of  undigested  or  partially  digested  fish  dropped  or  regurgitated 
by  the  birds,  together  with  the  remains  of  birds  and  sea  lions 
and  other  mammals.  The  best  guano  comes  from  the  Chincha 
Islands  of  Peru.  In  those  nearly  rainless  regions  it  retains 
a  large  percentage  of  its  nitrogen,  and  Dr.  Robert  Cushman 
Murphy  remarks  that,  calculated  according  to  the  nitrogen 
content,  the  best  Peruvian  guano  is  more  than  thirty-three 
times  as  effective  as  barnyard  manure.2 

Centuries  before  the  discovery  of  America  there  existed  on 
the  west  coast  of  the  South  American  continent  a  civilization 
noted  for  its  agriculture,  textile  industries  and  architecture. 
The  intensive  agriculture  of  the  Incas,  upon  which  their  civiliza- 
tion was  based,  was  made  possible  by  the  deposits  of  guano, 
and  through  a  wonderful  system  of  agricultural  engineering  by 
which  they  laid  out  irrigation  works  which  enabled  them  to  ex- 
tend their  crop-producing  industries  far  into  the  naturally  arid 
wastes.  Guano  was  used  even  on  the  mountain  terraces  two  to 
three  miles  above  sea  level.  The  Incas  wisely  conserved  the 
birds  that  produced  guano.  The  breeding  birds  were  zealously 
guarded,  and  the  wanton  destruction  of  one  of  them  was  made 
a  capital  offence,  punishable  by  death.  Unfortunately  protective 
measures  were  not  adopted  by  the  whites,  who,  on  the  con- 
trary, not  only  exploited  the  supply,  but  destroyed  the  birds 
that  produced  it.  Humboldt  returning  from  his  travels  in 
tropical  America  in  1804  carried  to  Europe  samples  of  guano, 

1  Bulletin  No.  1,  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1917,  pp.  6,  7. 
*  The  Seacoast  and  Islands  of  Peru,  Brooklyn  Museum  Quarterly,  Vol.  VII,  No.  4,  Octo- 
ber, 1920,  p.  245. 


78 

and  first  called  attention  to  the  value  of  the  immense  deposits 
on  the  Chincha  Islands.  The  importance  of  this  announcement 
was  not  realized  at  that  time,  but  forty  years  later  this  same 
guano  revolutionized  methods  in  agriculture  in  all  civilized 
lands,  and  furnished  an  immense  source  of  revenue  for  exploit- 
ing corporations  and  even  for  nations.  The  Peruvian  govern- 
ment depended  largely  for  some  years  upon  the  revenue  from 
this  industry  for  the  payment  of  the  interest  on  the  national 
debt.1 

In  1843,  when  the  great  commercial  extraction  of  guano  from 
these  islands  began,  the  material  lay  in  beds,  in  some  cases 
more  than  100  feet  in  depth.  The  supply  seemed  inexhaustible, 
and  according  to  a  survey  made  by  the  Peruvian  government  in 
1853,  there  were  12,376,100  tons  then  available.  By  1850  the 
price  of  Peruvian  guano  in  the  United  States  had  advanced  to 
$50  per  ton  or  more.  It  is  said  that  from  1851  to  1872  more 
than  10,000,000  tons  of  this  excellent  fertilizer  were  taken  from 
one  small  group  of  islands,  representing  an  average  annual  ex- 
portation valued  at  from  $20,000,000  to  $30,000,000.2 

During  this  period  the  destruction  of  the  birds  and  the  ex- 
traction of  the  guano  were  carried  on  together.  Sometimes  as 
many  as  fifty  or  seventy  ships  of  different  nations  were  gathered 
around  the  islands.  Slaves  were  employed  to  dig  and  load  the 
product,  while  the  birds  were  wantonly  killed  or  driven  away. 
At  times  thousands  of  young  birds  were  driven  over  the  cliffs 
to  their  death  merely  to  get  them  out  of  the  way.  Such  a 
campaign  of  destruction  and  exploitation  could  have  but  one 
end.  Dr.  F.  A.  Lucas  asserts  that  as  early  as  1879,  when  he 
visited  the  islands,  they  had  been  swept  clear  of  guano  birds, 
and  that  he  saw  no  sign  anywhere  on  that  coast  of  the  huge 
flocks  of  those  species  of  birds  that  had  been  responsible  fir 
the  original  guano  deposits. 

By  the  close  of  the  last  century  the  deposits  on  the  islands 
were  so  reduced,  that  the  agriculture  of  Peru  itself  was  threat- 
ened. The  control  of  the  small  remaining  supply  was  largely  in 
the  hands  of  foreign  creditors,  and  the  future  of  the  Peruvian 
guano  industry  looked  dark  indeed.  Since  then,  however,  the 

1  Palmer,  T.  S.:  Yearbook,  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture,  1899,  p.  274. 
1  Coker,    R.   E.:     Peru's   Wealth-producing   Birds,    National    Geographic   Magazine,   Vol. 
XXXVII,  No.  6,  June,  1920,  p.  543. 


79 

government  has  adopted  a  wise  system  of  conservation,  includ- 
ing rigid  protection  of  the  birds.  Thereby  the  greatest  of  all 
modern  business  undertakings  based  on  the  conservation  and 
protection  of  wild  birds,  has  been  rapidly  built  up.  The  prin- 
cipal guano-producing  birds  of  these  islands  are  a  species  of 
cormorant,  a  pelican  and  two  gannets.  They  are  constantly 
guarded  and  protected  from  their  enemies,  and  now  (1921)  have 
increased  within  twenty  years  from  a  miserable  remnant  to 
enormous  numbers.  It  is  estimated  that  there  were  in  1913 
5,600,000  cormorants  on  the  central  Chincha  Island  alone. 
Under  the  present  system  the  production  of  guano  on  these 
islands  has  risen  from  25,370  tons  in  1909-10  to  80,898  tons  in 
1917-18.  In  a  letter  dated  August  24,  1920,  Senor  Ballen  wrote 
that  it  was  expected  that  the  output  for  that  year  alone  would 
be  82,000  tons.  These  figures  refer  not  to  the  ancient  or  fossil 
guano,  now  entirely  exhausted  on  these  particular  islands,  but 
to  the  recent  product  deposited  since  the  policy  of  conservation 
began.  It  is  noted,  also,  that  under  this  policy  the  average 
nitrogen  content  of  the  guano  has  risen  nearly  4  per  cent  in  the 
last  five  or  six  years.  Dr.  Coker  estimates  that  the  money 
value  of  a  single  pair  of  cormorants  (Phalacrocorax  bougainvillei) 
is  not  less  than  $15  for  the  guano  that  they  produce. 

For  the  above  facts  I  am  largely  indebted  to  Dr.  Murphy, 
who  has  recently  investigated  the  Chincha  Island  guano  in- 
dustry on  the  spot.  There  are  many  other  guano  islands,  but 
those  in  rainless  regions  are  of  the  greatest  value,  losing  little 
of  the  nitrogen  content  which,  elsewhere,  rain  washes  out. 
American  citizens  have  filed  claims  to  about  seventy-five  guano 
islands  situated  mainly  in  the  Pacific  or  the  Caribbean  sea. 
On  some  of  them  deposits  have  proved  worthless,  but  guano 
valued  at  more  than  $3,000,000  has  been  imported  to  the 
United  States  from  some  of  these  islands.  Citizens  of  other 
countries  have  exploited  other  guano  islands  in  various  parts  of 
the  world,  but  the  Peruvian  Islands,  under  wise  management, 
will  continue  to  be  the  greatest  guano-producing  station  in  the 
world. 

Here  ends  our  survey  of  the  value  of  birds  to  man  from  a 
material  standpoint.  What  follows  is  taken  in  substance  from 
"Useful  Birds,"  with  such  changes  as  afterthought  has  dictated. 


80 


ESTHETIC,  SENTIMENTAL  AND  EDUCATIONAL  VALUE  OF  BIRDS. 

Thus  far  in  this  bulletin  birds  have  been  regarded  solely  from 
the  standpoint  of  "enlightened  self-interest."  They  have  been 
looked  at  strictly  from  the  utilitarian  point  of  view,  and  it  has 
been  demonstrated  that  their  contributions  to  man's  material 
welfare  are  very  considerable.  Now  let  us  turn  for  a  moment 
from  the  contemplation  of  such  utility  of  birds  as  money  can 
measure  to  "some  of  the  higher  and  nobler  uses  which  birds 
subserve  to  man." 

At  once  we  step  from  the  beaten  path  of  economic  ornithology 
into  a  realm  made  sacred  by  art,  letters,  sentiment  and  poetry, 

—  into  intellectual  fields  where  the  fascinating  study  of  birds 
may  either  provide  delightful  experiences  or  may  lead  to  the 
classroom,   the  museum,   the  laboratory  or  the  closet  of  the 
systematist.     Wherever  it  may  lead,  this  phase  of  our  subject 
is  important  and  demands  the  most  serious  consideration.    Al- 
though presented  last,  its  benefactions  should  be  reckoned  first 
among  the  items  which  go  to  make  up  the  sum  of  our  indebted- 
ness to  the  feathered  race. 

The  beauty  of  birds,  the  music  of  their  songs,  the  weird 
wildness  of  their  calls,  the  majesty  of  their  soaring  flight,  and 
the  mystery  of  their  migrations  always  have  been  subjects  of 
absorbing  interest  to  poets,  artists  and  lovers  of  nature.  Promi- 
nent among  the  undying  memories  of  men  are  mental  pictures 
of  the  birds  of  childhood,  their  coming  in  the  spring,  their  nest- 
ing and  their  chosen  haunts.  Many  an  exiled  emigrant  longs 
in  vain  to  hear  again  the  outpouring  melody  of  the  skylark,  as 
it  soars  above  the  fields  of  England.  Many  a  New  England 
boy,  shut  in  by  western  mountains,  yearns  for  the  bubbling, 
joyous  song  of  the  bobolink  in  June  meadows.  The  characters 
and  traits  of  birds,  their  loves  and  battles,  their  skill  in  home 
building,  their  devotion  to  their  young,  their  habits  and  ways, 

—  all  are  of  exceeding  interest  to  mankind.    Birds  have  become 
symbolic  of  certain  human  characteristics,  and  therefore  some 
common  species  have  come  to  be  so  interwoven  with  our  art 
and  literature  that  their  names  are  almost  household  words. 
What  biblical  scholar  is  not  familiar  with  the  birds  of  the  Bible? 
Shakespeare  makes  over  six  hundred  references  to  birds  or  bird 


81 

life.    Much  of  our  best  literature  would  lose  some  of  its  charm 
and  appeal  were  it  shorn  of  poetic  allusions  to  birds. 

Birds  often  have  inspired  the  poets.  Bryant's  lines  "To  a 
Waterfowl"  and  Shelley's  "Skylark"  each  exhibit  a  phase  of 
noble  inspiration.  These  are  but  instances  of  the  stimulating 
power  exerted  on  the  mind  of  man  by  the  bird  and  its  associa- 
tions. Some  of  the  grandest  poems  ever  written  have  been 
dependent  on  their  author's  observations  of  birds  for  some  touch 
of  nature  which  has  helped  to  render  them  immortal.  Thus 
Gray,  in  his  famed  "Elegy  Written  in  a  Country  Church- 
yard":— 

The  breezy  call  of  incense-breathing  morn, 
The  swallow  twittering  from  the  straw-built  shed, 

The  cock's  shrill  clarion,  or  the  echoing  horn, 
No  more  shall  rouse  them  from  their  lowly  bed. 

Who,  reared  in  a  country  home,  can  fail  as  he  reads  these 
lines  to  recall  the  twittering  of  the  swallows  under  the  spreading 
rafters  in  the  cool  of  early  morning?  The  mental  contemplation 
of  that  peaceful  scene,  the  train  of  tender  recollections  of  the 
time  of  youth  and  innocence,  all  tending  toward  better  impulses 
and  higher  aspirations,  are  largely  due  to  the  mention  of  the 
familiar  bird  in  its  association  with  the  home  of  childhood.  Is 
not  literature  the  richer  for  the  following  lines  of  Longfellow,  in 
his  "Birds  of  Passage"? 

Above  in  the  light 

Of  the  star-lit  night, 

Swift  birds  of  passage  wing  their  flight 

Through  the  dewy  atmosphere. 

I  hear  the  beat 

Of  their  pinions  fleet, 

As  from  the  land  of  snow  and  sleet, 

They  seek  a  southern  lea. 

How  much  of  life  and  color  the  presence  of  birds  adds  to  the 
landscape!  The  artist  appreciates  this.  What  marine  view  is 
complete  without  its  sea  birds  in  flight?  How  much  of  life  and 
action  a  flock  of  wild-fowl  add  to  a  lake  or  river  scene! 


82 

Birds  are  a  special  boon  to  child  life,  and  a  never-ending 
source  of  entertainment  to  many  children  who  live  upon  isolated 
farms,  where  in  summer  or  in  winter  the  observation  of  birds 
adds  greatly  to  the  rational  enjoyment  of  existence. 

It  is  not  a  far  cry  from  the  poet  to  the  philosopher,  who  also 
sees  a  value  in  birds  for  the  opportunity  they  afford  for  the 
culture  of  the  intellect.  Every  page  of  the  book  of  nature  is 
educational;  but,  as  Dr.  Coues  says,  there  is  no  fairer  or  more 
fascinating  page  than  that  devoted  to  the  life  history  of  a  bird. 
The  systematic  study  of  birds  develops  both  the  perceptive 
faculties  and  the  analytical  powers  of  the  mind.  The  study  of 
the  living  bird  afield  is  rejuvenating  to  both  mind  and  body. 
The  outdoor  use  of  eye,  ear  and  limb  necessitated  by  field 
work  tends  to  fit  both  the  body  and  mind  of  the  student  for 
the  practical  work  of  life,  since  it  develops  both  members  and 
faculties.  The  beauty  and  grace  of  birds  appeal  to  the  eye; 
their  activity  is  inspiriting;  their  joyousness  is  contagious;  and 
their  finest  songs  awaken  the  spirit  of  praise  and  devotion. 
There  is  no  purer  joy  in  life  than  that  which  comes  to  those 
who,  rising  in  the  dusk  of  early  morning,  welcome  the  approach 
of  day  with  all  its  bird  voices.  The  nature  lover  who  listens  to 
the  song  of  the  wood  thrush  at  dawn,  —  an  anthem  of  calm, 
serene,  spiritual  joy  sounding  through  the  dim  woods,  —  hears 
it  with  feelings  akin  to  those  of  the  devotee  whose  being  is 
thrilled  by  the  grand  and  sacred  music  of  the  sanctuary.  And 
he  who  in  the  still  forest  at  evening  harkens  to  the  exquisite 
tones  of  the  hermit,  —  that  voice  of  nature  expressing  in  sweet 
cadences  her  pathos  and  her  ineffable  mystery,  —  experiences 
amid  the  falling  shades  of  night  emotions  which  must  humble, 
chasten  and  purify  even  the  noblest  of  the  sons  of  men. 

The  uplifting  influence  that  birds  may  thus  exert  upon  tile 
lives  of  men  constitutes  their  greatest  value  and  charm.  A 
growing  appreciation  of  the  esthetic  and  the  educational  value 
of  birds  has  sent  many  cultured  folk  to  the  woods,  fields  and 
shores.  People  are  turning  toward  nature  study,  and  the  ob- 
servation of  birds  in  the  field  is  one  of  the  most  popular  mani- 
festations of  an  increased  and  abiding  interest  in  animate 
Nature.  Students  who  have  become  familiar  with  the  common 
birds  of  their  own  vicinity  long  for  new  fields  and  new  birds. 


83 

Let  a  well-known  writer  describe  in  print  any  locality  in  Massa- 
chusetts where  rare  or  interesting  birds  are  to  be  found,  and 
soon  some  of  his  readers  will  be  upon  the  ground. 

Possibly,  however,  the  greatest  boon  that  the  study  of  birds 
can  confer  upon  man  is  seen  in  the  power  of  the  bird-lover  to 
keep  his  spirit  young.  One  who  in  early  years  is  attracted  to 
the  study  of  birds  will  find  that  with  them  he  always  renews 
his  youth.  Each  spring  the  awakening  year  encompasses  him 
with  a  flood  of  joyous  bird  life.  Old  friends  are  they  who  greet 
him,  and  they  come  as  in  the  days  of  childhood,  bringing 
tidings  of  good  cheer.  Years  roll  on,  the  days  of  youth  are 
gone,  the  head  becomes  bowed  with  sorrow  and  frosted  by  the 
snows  of  time,  the  strong  hand  trembles,  the  friends  of  youth 
have  passed  away,  —  but  each  returning  spring  the  old  familiar 
bird  songs  come  back  to  us,  unchanged  by  the  passing  years. 
Let  us,  then,  teach  our  children  to  love  and  protect  the  birds, 
that  these  familiar  friends  of  their  childhood  may  remain  to 
cheer  them  with  song  and  beauty  when,  toward  the  sunset  of 
life,  the  shadows  will  grow  long  upon  the  pathway. 


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